Latest / BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show / Driving by Data: How Apex Pro Is Revolutionizing Track Performance (Andrew Rains)

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Driving by Data: How Apex Pro Is Revolutionizing Track Performance (Andrew Rains) · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

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  Break fix podcast is all about capturing the living history of people from
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  all over the auto sphere, from wrench turners and racers to artists, authors,
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  designers, and everything in between.
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  Our goal is to inspire a new generation of petrol heads that wonder.
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  How did they get that job or become that person?
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  The road to success is paved by all of us because everyone has a story.
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  Everyone always says that the number one mod for any driver is seat time.
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  Do you reach a point where seat time alone isn't enough?
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  Coaches can only get you so far.
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  So what is an aspiring driver supposed to do?
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  That's where software, machine learning, and data driven intelligence in the form
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  of digital driving coaches come into play.
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  Apex Pro was born out of the desire to simplify and improve the way data
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  is displayed and communicated to the driver, helping folks improve
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  and achieve better lap times.
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  And with me tonight on Break Fix is special guest host Phil Ingalls
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  from MaxSpeed Track Days, along with Andrew Rains, business lead for Apex
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  Pro, to explain how this all works.
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  So welcome to the show, Andrew.
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  Hey, thanks for having me.
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  It's a flattering intro.
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  I appreciate it.
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  So let's talk about the origin of Apex.
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  Where did this idea come from?
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  How did it all come about?
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  What inspired you to develop this digital driving coach?
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  You hit the nail on the head with your intro, really.
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  And it's born out of the whole obsession with trying to simplify
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  and solve a problem in a simpler way.
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  So when, when I got involved in motor sports, Data was kind of like
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  an intimidating subject, and I'm sure it is for some as well, you
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  know, if you're listening to this.
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  You might be that person.
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  And until I really was exposed to somebody that could really walk
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  me through how to properly use a professional grade data system, I didn't
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  really appreciate how powerful it was.
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  On a really simple level.
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  I want to share that experience with people and.
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  Provide them with a simpler way to gain insight into their performance and to
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  provide them with a tool that they can really take and grow with and mature
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  with as they go through the sport.
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  And then also obviously incorporate elements of technology that helps
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  solve the problem in a simplified way, which doesn't mean less powerful.
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  It just means more user friendly.
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  That's kind of the inspiration.
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  This is my personal driving and racing experience with data systems
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  and trying to become a better driver.
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  And then meeting my business partner, who's our, our
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  technical lead, Austin Gurley.
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  He developed the, the concept of Apex Pro, the machine learning that operates
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  the lights on the display that calculate all sorts of interesting things.
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  And he kind of approached me with this concept.
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  It's like broad idea.
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  I think we can do something that's simpler and different.
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  Ever since then, it's just been the constant pursuit of trying
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  to do that better every day.
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  So how long have you guys been working on the product and evolving it?
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  The, uh, the first time I touched a prototype of the product would
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  have been in 2010, but we didn't bring it to market until 2016.
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  So there was kind of a, like a gestation period of figuring out what this thing
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  is and where it fits into the market.
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  And, and really just figuring out the technical backend, you know, me
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  sticking some sensors in the race car.
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  Sending it back to Austin after the weekend, about three years of that.
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  And then we finally kind of put the pieces together and ended up developing an app
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  to control the hardware that we designed.
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  And then we kind of happened into a really fortuitous place where
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  we realized that smartphones are now capable enough to operate.
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  As a very key element of your data system.
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  They don't have good enough sensors to record the data themselves, but
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  they can display it really well.
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  Those two things kind of coming together, like affordable, really good sensors and
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  powerful supercomputers in your pocket are what made our business possible.
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  So like any good IT.
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  Company, it's two guys in their basement or in their garage, no budget
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  and a desire to change the world.
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  So that sounds like the Apex pro story.
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  Yeah, absolutely.
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  Did some of this come out of you when you were at Auburn university and he was
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  part of their, uh, drift team, correct?
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  Formula SAE team.
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  Yeah.
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  That's kind of where you started your seeking your data so that
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  you could be better at that.
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  Yeah.
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  You can actually see the picture, uh, audio only listeners.
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  I apologize.
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  There's a picture of a race car behind me.
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  It's a Formula SAE car.
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  So I went to like Fillside Auburn university, which listeners in the South
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  will be familiar with anybody that watches college football might recognize it,
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  but they have a huge engineering school and I was a business student, but I
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  happened upon this race car one day at an autocross that had Auburn logos on it.
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  And I'm like, hold on a second.
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  I'm about to go to Auburn.
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  Like I need to look into this.
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  And so I realized that there was this.
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  University funded organization that builds a race car.
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  Like Phil said, I was actually club racing at the time.
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  My dad and I had bought a vintage race car and I was kind of stringing that together,
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  doing one or two events a year, maybe.
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  And then I got into Formula SAE and that really lit the flame, kind
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  of fueled the passion behind it because now every day I'm with him.
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  10 or 20 like minded people that are just trying to figure out how
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  to design and build a race car.
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  And even though I didn't go to school for the technical aspects of it, I
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  learned a ton about building a car from a blank sheet and a big part of that is
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  data and we ended up probably spending 20, 000 on ECUs and MoTeC sensors and
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  damper pots and wheel speed sensors.
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  And, you know, we had everything on the car, you know, it's sensors for
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  everything, and we knew all about the health of the motor and everything, but.
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  We weren't using it for driving.
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  We were just using it to make sure the car wasn't falling apart.
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  Nothing against MoTak.
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  I use MoTak sometimes when I coach.
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  It's, it's a great product for some, but it requires a lot of technical
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  experience and it's not really designed to deliver inflammation
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  to the driver that's actionable.
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  It's more of a tool that you use to expose deeper things to solve a lot of problems.
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  That's a big part of it.
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  Yeah, you're definitely right.
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  So you actually hit on something that's really important here is most
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  people in let's call it road racing.
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  So we're going to qualify that as.
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  HPDE, club racing, time trials, anything that falls into, you know, circuit
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  racing that we're all accustomed to, they have their loyalties to
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  competitors out in the market.
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  Some of the more prominent ones in HPDE world, because
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  it's cheap, Harry's Lap Timer.
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  For those of us that are trialers, we're used to using AIMS and AIM
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  Solos and AIM dashboards, et cetera.
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  And then we have some newcomers in the market, right?
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  Last year, Garmin announced So they came out with their own driving tool.
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  So how does Apex Pro stack up against some of these names that we've
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  become familiar with over the years?
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  That's a great question.
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  It's kind of a marriage between what you look at from the entry
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  level app type products, the Harry's or the track addicts, but
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  kind of more on the hardware side.
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  It's more similar to aim where the sensors are obviously much higher end.
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  They're very sensitive to how you Mount them.
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  It has to be calibrated properly.
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  Not that that should intimidate you, it's all easy to do, but there's a, you get
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  the device with the sensors in it, right?
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  Which is a huge difference between that and the app world in the app space.
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  You can buy GPS dongles to pair with apps and stuff like that.
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  But what's really unique about us is that we make an app and we make a piece
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  of hardware and those were designed from the beginning to work together.
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  So they're very simple and easy to use together.
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  If you're on a budget and you're trying to string together 10 Hertz
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  GPS and run it with an app and pay a dollar a month for the app and buy a
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  hundred dollar GPS, you're going to end up with a compatibility issue.
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  You're going to end up with a lack of support.
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  There's a lot of ways that that can kind of sour your experience with data.
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  So we're kind of trying to be the easy button for the person that
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  wants to go there and kind of step out of that into something that's
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  a more purposeful hardware device.
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  So we kind of want to be the bridge.
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  Our product is primarily app based.
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  There's a lot of power in the app.
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  Truthfully, it's works for 95 percent of drivers.
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  There's probably a small population of people that need
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  more information than we provide.
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  There's other ways to do that.
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  When you mentioned the Garmin, it's very, very different than the Garmin.
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  It's a different tool.
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  I can definitely compare and contrast them.
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  The biggest difference is the price point.
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  They're twice our price, but if you're an audio, like learning
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  style, if you're an audible learner, then the Garmin's probably got
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  some really compelling features.
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  If you're a visual learner, or if you are compelled to, You
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  know, learn how to leverage data.
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  Then Apex pros is probably what you want.
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  If you're looking for the easy button, I think that's probably a simple quick fix.
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  I noticed that you didn't mention the abundant frustration that most of us
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  have with race studio and all the, the programs that go along with the aim.
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  So I'm hoping to hear some positives to maybe convince people that, you
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  know, this would be a good thing.
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  A huge change for them, at least in how they interpret their data.
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  Cause most of us spend our time trying to get it to work more than anything else.
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  Right?
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  We can definitely touch on it.
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  I try not to focus too much on what I don't like about our competitors.
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  Cause they do a lot of really good things, but I'll definitely
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  put out there the differences between if that's the software you're using
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  versus what you experience using ours.
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  If I can interject something here, because first off, I started
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  off with Apex as an end user.
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  I kind of reached out to Andrew because I had ideas when we were forming
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  MaxSpeed to provide data to everyone.
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  And he kind of explained to me that logistics of that in a track day
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  style format was pretty rough, but I ended up becoming a dealer of Apex
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  units and a very basic end user at the beginning, so I got my first Apex unit.
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  And really all I used it for was lap times, but then my buddy and business
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  partner, Brendan, you met him last time we had a podcast, he got one and
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  neither one of us really knowing a whole lot about the data, but we would
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  just sit down and look at, okay, how fast are you going through this corner?
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  How many red lights are you showing or whatever?
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  Super simple stuff.
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  And if I was a couple of miles an hour faster, Brandon would be like, well.
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  Okay, then I I know that I could I could go faster through the corner if you can
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  stick it because our cars are identical than I can stick it and it was just we
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  would sit down on a couch after sessions and just look at each other's line and
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  data and how much apex score we were using and it was super simple and we got faster.
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  I shaved four seconds off my lap times that wrote Atlanta over the
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  course of a weekend using an apex pro and I knew nothing about data.
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  It was just the lights and looking at the path going around the track.
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  So for a new introduction person to data, the Apex app and device is mind blowing.
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  And then of course, Andrew has taught me a lot about data since,
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  and now I can really drill down into it and learn how to get better.
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  For a first time user, it's super intuitive and simple to use.
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  Yeah.
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  I think what's important if you're like in this space and you're looking at
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  different product offerings, I can't speak to the other company's mantra or customer
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  service or how they deal with things.
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  Our goal as a business and all we focus on is we want to make you
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  become an apex pro essentially.
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  Like we want you to be able to get into any car and drive the wheels off of it.
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  Data is a big component, you know, quantifying your performance of
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  learning, but it's not everything.
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  There's a mentorship and a coaching role and connection community that
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  really drives the learning process.
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  You know, finding people that you can connect with, finding a good coach,
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  finding the right, right seat instructor, finding tools and resources to leverage
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  the data that you have, no matter how simple the data gets to see, there's
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  a process that your brain has to go through where you have to understand it.
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  Right.
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  And it can become too simple.
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  We want to respect that people can learn how to use data.
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  We just have to present it to them in the right format.
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  And so that's, our goal is to help you learn to drive the wheels off of
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  anything through this vehicle of data.
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  So what Phil's talking about is like there's subjective elements where I
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  communicate a lot directly with customers.
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  And we talk about track nuances that might not be present in data or.
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  We might talk about a track nuance and I say, Hey, guess how you can
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  see that if you're a laptop or plus subscriber, you can see grade and
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  elevation change, you know, as a graph or colored on the track map and you
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  can go see why I am telling you you can roll more speed through a certain turn
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  because there's compression or there's something that's turn six roto line.
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  Yeah, turn six.
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  So it almost seems with the light.
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  It's to be a little bit Pavlovian in a way where there is some
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  psychology in there too.
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  Because are you anticipating those colors to be there?
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  Because the way I've understood the product is there's a double
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  edged sword to this, right?
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  Where the visual side of it on the phone, you don't have time
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  to look at while you're driving.
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  You use that after the fact to analyze your data versus the onboard, you
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  know, device that sensor you were showing, you know, has those lights.
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  It gives you an immediate gratification and immediate feedback
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  while you're driving, you know, red, yellow, green, et cetera.
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  You guys have mixed in some psychology in there as well, right?
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  Yeah, honestly, I think that's the goal because, and you can probably
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  speak to this, Eric, as a coach or a right seat instructor, there's,
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  there's very, very small amounts of information you can communicate when a
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  driver's in the headspace of driving, they're focused, they're trying to
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  get into the flow state, there's very, very minimal amounts of information.
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  So what we find is that people that drive with Apex Pro drive with it for months,
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  years, and eventually the lights start to become very significant to them.
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  Because they start to understand having looked at the data and having, having
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  seen them what they represent and they start to believe that it helps them all
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  the matters for us as drivers is that we believe what we're being told that
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  we have confidence in the car, you know?
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  So like the days of thunder, right?
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  When Harry hides on the radio and he's like, you can run the
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  high line and turn forward.
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  You can make it stick.
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  That's what, yeah, that's exactly, that's what he says.
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  Followed by, you can come on down here and get yourself some ice cream.
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  That's right.
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  We're having ice cream.
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  The psychology of driving a car is everything.
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  Our mental state is everything.
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  So if we can.
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  Find a way to blend the data with the human brain.
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  And the only way that I currently really know how to do that is by getting
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  hands on and helping people bringing the technology along so that it brings
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  people to those conversations at a more educated level, we want to educate people
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  in a way that they can understand why they need to drive a certain way, not
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  just be told to do a certain thing.
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  And coaches and right seat instructors are great at providing the instruction
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  for where we turn in, where we break some of these other things.
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  But when we start to really explore how we.
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  Get the most out of a car, how we keep the apex pro lights green all
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  the way around the track, which means you're using all the tires ability.
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  There's not really a black and white answer.
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  Should I break later?
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  Should I break softer?
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  Should I come off the brake later?
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  Should I come off the brake, you know, sooner, whatever it is, you have to have
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  the tools in your toolbox to apply it when it's appropriate and there's an
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  art form to the formant of those skills.
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  So anyway, we can kind of promote proper driving techniques and give
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  people Solid things to look at in their data to track that performance
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  and then open up this whole world of allowing them to learn these things.
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  You know, you don't know what you don't know.
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  So would you say then that it helps facilitate the ability
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  to learn how to drive by feel?
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  Yeah, I think using data properly does because what you hear previously, you
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  know, in the industry before data was commonplace and it still isn't enough.
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  Most people still aren't leveraging it.
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  A lot of people say, well, that feels faster.
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  Usually feeling faster means it's a little scarier.
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  It's a little more intense or the car's loaded more laterally a lot of times.
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  And there's lots of things that you're like, Oh, that feels faster.
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  But when you look at the data, you know, you may have carried more speed
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  into the corner, but you didn't get a good exit, whatever it is, what we're
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  trying to do with the data is calibrate.
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  Our feel to what actually the data says is fast, then we're really, really powerful.
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  Then we'd look at data totally differently.
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  We can kind of anticipate what it's going to tell us.
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  And I can speak to my own driving.
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  I have a sense for when I attack the entry too much and I compromise my exit.
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  I know on a scale of did that hurt me or not?
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  And was that an entry speed corner or an exit speed corner?
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  I can quantify those things more easily now and kind of have a
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  sense for that more naturally than before I really was a student of.
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  The data and understanding what that meant.
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  Let's talk about how the system works under the hood.
• 15:12
  You know, a lot of our listeners, it's kind of an interesting dichotomy where
• 15:15
  you have it nerds and car people.
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  They happen to be the same persona a lot of the time.
• 15:22
  And when you start talking about machine learning, you get all, you know, the hairs
• 15:26
  on the back of the information science guys next standing on end because they're
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  like, well, is it really ML or is it AI?
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  Without giving away any, any secret sauce here, but just to talk about
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  how the system works in general, and then maybe compare and contrast it
• 15:39
  to some of the other leading systems that we're used to working with.
• 15:41
  Yeah, sure.
• 15:42
  So I've spent a lot of time explaining this and talking about the backend.
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  So I'll start by kind of prefacing what Apex Pro is and what it displays to you
• 15:50
  and how powerful that information is.
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  And then I'll kind of talk about fundamentally why it works, because
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  that's not a technical thing, but it's a truth that we all know.
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  And that's the reason why it fundamentally just works.
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  And, and you need to know that before you know anything about it.
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  So on the apex display, while you're driving, you see red and green lights.
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  And the red lights indicate the limit of the car's potential or the limit of the
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  car driver combination, its potential.
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  It's not ultimately what that car can do with Michael Schumacher behind the wheel.
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  It's what that car can do today with you driving it and the green
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  lights represent your performance.
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  So the, the raw sensor reading.
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  So it's all based on kind of a.
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  A friction circle, right?
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  Like we're taught early on with the string theory.
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  And if we are graph, you know, lateral and longitudinal G you end up with a
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  shape as you drive around the track, that looks kind of like an ellipse,
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  kind of like a pear shaped thing that represents lateral and longitudinal load.
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  So what Apex Pro is doing is it's taking that, but it's measuring accelerations
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  in nine axes with a nine axis IMU.
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  For the more technically inclined, that's a nine axis IMU is like
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  three axis accelerometers.
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  Um, one of them's a gyro.
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  You've got a lot of different sensor readings that you're taking in on
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  accelerations, uh, and then there's also a 10 Hertz GPS and the device
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  that is used for speed and position.
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  And that's obviously very important as well for the traditional data output
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  that you're going to get in the app.
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  You're going to use the GPS.
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  And then we also do some other cool stuff with the GPS, like crew view
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  and streaming your position and some other cool stuff that we're working on.
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  That's what you see when you drive.
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  So basically if there's red lights from the braking zone to the track out, there's
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  more potential, meaning the tires, not at the edge of the friction circle.
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  So red is not necessarily bad.
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  It's just unused potential.
• 17:31
  Okay.
• 17:32
  Yeah.
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  It's opportunity is the way I like to think about it.
• 17:35
  Yeah.
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  If you see red, I don't focus on it anymore.
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  It's just in my peripheral vision.
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  Right above my steering wheel and I'm looking down, but I can see if I go
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  through a corner that there's one red block there and I don't focus on it, but I
• 17:47
  know next lap, I can make that all green.
• 17:50
  Maybe I need more entry speed, or maybe I need to set up my corner entry better
• 17:55
  to pull more speed through the apex, but I know that there's more there.
• 17:59
  I know that I'm safe to push that little bit more because it's showing me the red.
• 18:04
  It's kind of indicating like the car can take more input.
• 18:07
  Yep.
• 18:07
  And that input could be steering, pedals, something that's going
• 18:10
  to get the car closer to the edge of the friction circle speed.
• 18:13
  Just, it just depends.
• 18:14
  That's part of the learning process.
• 18:16
  Yeah.
• 18:16
  We touched on that.
• 18:17
  With the 9 axis IMU, you can measure, obviously, accelerations
• 18:20
  and lateral longitudinal.
• 18:23
  So you're kind of traditional.
• 18:24
  Axes, you obviously have a gyro for your slip or jaw axis.
• 18:29
  Uh, and then you can also measure all these other axes of acceleration, right?
• 18:33
  So apex actually can model camera corners.
• 18:37
  The data filtering that's happening from the IMU when it's
• 18:40
  intaking sensor readings, it's actually saying like, are we flat?
• 18:44
  Like how we calibrated?
• 18:46
  You know, when we press the calibrate button, or is the car tilted?
• 18:49
  Uh, or is it going uphill?
• 18:50
  Have we been traveling and accelerating?
• 18:52
  You know, uphill or whatever, or downhill it's measuring all those things.
• 18:56
  So it's filtering out to where it knows the grade or the camber.
• 18:59
  And that's, that's very important because that affects the limit of grip, right?
• 19:03
  You have slightly more grip when you're going uphill, depending
• 19:06
  on the steepness of the grade.
• 19:07
  You have slightly less grip than a flat surface when you're driving downhill.
• 19:10
  Same with on camera and off camera, right?
• 19:13
  The reason NASCAR tracks are banked are because gravity is now pushing
• 19:16
  the car into the ground, right?
• 19:18
  You have kind of more contact patch.
• 19:19
  You have more static mechanical grip.
• 19:21
  That's important to know.
• 19:22
  But the fundamental thing that I think everybody that's either speculative
• 19:26
  about Apex Pro or not convinced that it can do what it does, all you really have
• 19:30
  to know is that some corners are not driven optimally, like some drivers just.
• 19:35
  All of us actually, I'm sorry, some is the wrong word.
• 19:37
  We all drive one corner better than another.
• 19:39
  We all go faster someplace on the track.
• 19:42
  We're all more confident in a certain corner than another.
• 19:45
  And it could be the fast wide open corner where we can see all the way
• 19:48
  through the exit and our first lap out, we're already tearing through there.
• 19:52
  Or it might be the slow speed corner.
• 19:53
  Cause we come from autocross and we can just trail the brake off into that corner.
• 19:57
  The car rotates, we get some oversteer on the exit and it's not a big deal.
• 20:00
  That fundamental truth is how Apex quote unquote learns the limit.
• 20:04
  That's what it uses as your baseline performance.
• 20:06
  It's taking that performance that it sees there.
• 20:09
  You're pulling a certain number of G's.
• 20:11
  At a certain speed with a certain banking in the track,
• 20:15
  a certain grade of the surface.
• 20:17
  And then it knows all those things.
• 20:18
  It knows the grade, the bank, all that.
• 20:20
  So the next time you go through a corner that has a different grade or banking or
• 20:24
  radius or speed, it can say, well, back here, we were doing this many G's at this
• 20:28
  speed with all these other variables here.
• 20:30
  This is slightly different, but these things are the same.
• 20:33
  So we can logically say, if you're pulling, let's say negative 0.
• 20:37
  9 longitudinal G.
• 20:39
  Going up a hill and on a flat surface and a flat breaking zone, you were
• 20:42
  pulling negative 1, then it can say, okay, there's reasonably more
• 20:47
  potential for the tire to grip here.
• 20:49
  Yeah.
• 20:49
  So with that being said, there's some other variables there
• 20:53
  that maybe people are kind of.
• 20:54
  Thinking about right now, as we're talking about this, scratching
• 20:56
  their heads going, well, what about the different tire compounds?
• 21:00
  What if I start the morning on a low grade R comp?
• 21:03
  And by the end of the day, I switched to slicks or my tires have to come
• 21:07
  up to temperature before they're sticky or they've superheated.
• 21:11
  And now they're no longer grippy.
• 21:12
  Like we see that all their time.
• 21:13
  There's so many variables when it comes to tires.
• 21:16
  How do you consistently pivot off of that as your data point?
• 21:21
  I mean, that's, that's really it.
• 21:22
  There's so many variables when it comes to tires and the theoretical potential
• 21:26
  of, of a tire to grip a surface.
• 21:28
  The surface changes throughout the day, right?
• 21:30
  With cloud cover temperatures are going to affect, we all know
• 21:33
  good weather is cloud cover, relatively cool temperatures, right?
• 21:37
  That's when you're going to go the fastest.
• 21:39
  So Apex doesn't know any of that stuff.
• 21:41
  That's not even a consideration.
• 21:42
  All it's looking at is the accelerations.
• 21:44
  The raw data from the sensor.
• 21:45
  So it's really showing you in real time, like, did you have more
• 21:49
  potential right then carry more speed through that corner to accelerate
• 21:51
  harder in that particular instance.
• 21:53
  So it doesn't know if your tires are up to temperature or not.
• 21:55
  All it knows is that you're accelerating it this much in this corner.
• 21:58
  And in this corner over here, you're not doing that, not necessarily the
• 22:02
  same exact performance, but a modified version of that same performance that it
• 22:05
  thinks is reasonable in those conditions.
• 22:07
  So the, basically the answer is it doesn't take any of that into consideration.
• 22:10
  And that's, that's part of how it works as well.
• 22:12
  How a part of how it represents something that's accurate
• 22:15
  in all of those conditions.
• 22:17
  And the only time that it's something that I would recommend that people
• 22:20
  change is when you go from a dry track to a wet track very quickly, because it
• 22:24
  learns your peak grip, peak traction, your peak, uh, edge of the friction.
• 22:29
  Right.
• 22:30
  The, the display won't be as helpful like unlearning all of that.
• 22:34
  Like, okay, you were.
• 22:36
  Decelerating a negative one G and now you're decelerating negative 0.
• 22:38
  6, right?
• 22:39
  Cause it's wet, but the other way around works exceptionally well.
• 22:42
  And this is, I hear this a lot from drivers and I've had this like epiphany
• 22:45
  myself, but on a wet to drying track, it's kind of unfair because you'll
• 22:50
  be feeding into the power and you're at slower speed cause it's wet.
• 22:54
  It's a little easier to be able to get the visual feedback and
• 22:56
  you can just tell so easily, and it's like a truth meter, right?
• 23:00
  You're like going to the power and you're like, I don't know
• 23:01
  if I can go to the next floor.
• 23:03
  And you'll see all these red lights started to populate and you
• 23:05
  just feed the power to the floor.
• 23:07
  I've had that experience so many times where it's just like giving me more
• 23:11
  confidence sooner in drying conditions to start pushing the car's limits.
• 23:16
  If you're a skeptic of the product, that's a hard situation to like to replicate.
• 23:21
  But if you can get on a wet track or a drying track with
• 23:24
  one, it'll open your eyes.
• 23:26
  And I don't know that it's skepticism so much as like to use your word, a
• 23:30
  recalibration of what we're used to.
• 23:32
  AIM does it a certain way.
• 23:34
  Harry's does it a very linear way, et cetera.
• 23:36
  So this is a different way of thinking.
• 23:38
  So it takes a minute to kind of wrap your head around how it works.
• 23:41
  I think some of the other questions that may come into people's minds as,
• 23:45
  as they're thinking this through right now, as you're explaining, it might be.
• 23:48
  I guess it really doesn't take into account the line either.
• 23:51
  So you could be a habitual early apexer and it doesn't matter because the
• 23:56
  machine learning is learning how you drive and then setting those optimal
• 24:01
  limits based on what you're doing.
• 24:02
  So I guess there's a negative to this in that if you don't drive a
• 24:06
  great line, whatever that means, because that's a truly ambiguous term,
• 24:10
  honestly, it's really only scoring you.
• 24:14
  But what happens say, you know, you get that classic situation and then my
• 24:18
  buddy got in my car and he beat my lap time by three seconds in my own car.
• 24:23
  Then Andrew will tell you about the easy button when you're speaking to
• 24:26
  people, data, let Andrew drive your car.
• 24:31
  Yeah, well, that, that, that's a really powerful tool because the, when
• 24:35
  you turn the apex pro off, it, it.
• 24:36
  erases that calibration.
• 24:38
  It doesn't store the memory of that performance, right?
• 24:41
  And there's a lot of reasons for that.
• 24:42
  Mostly conditions changing and the grip potential always being
• 24:45
  different, different times of day.
• 24:47
  But if you leave it on.
• 24:48
  So if I go, you know, drive a super fast lap and then Phil hops in,
• 24:53
  those red lights are gonna be more prevalent and they're gonna more
• 24:55
  Easily expose those types of things.
• 24:57
  And, and you can get a sense for things that are line related.
• 25:00
  So like, if I were to strictly look at the apex lights, I could kind
• 25:03
  of tell if you're an early apex or a late apex, or if that's kind
• 25:07
  of habitual, it's kind of helping you, if you're running a consistent
• 25:10
  line, it's going to be most helpful.
• 25:12
  And that's kind of where us as like early, you know, early stage instructors.
• 25:15
  That's what we're trying to get our students to do is drive consistently
• 25:17
  in the same place on the track.
• 25:19
  Obviously learn how to do.
• 25:20
  Things in other places on the track, break offline, overtake in different
• 25:24
  situations, have different site pictures.
• 25:26
  It's going to be most helpful for you on with some basic understanding
• 25:29
  of the principles of the line.
• 25:31
  And I'm not a believer in teaching people the line and saying, this is
• 25:34
  the line, because I think the line is a function of utilizing the, the, Tires
• 25:38
  grip the entire way around the track.
• 25:39
  And if you do, even the, even that the car's natural tendencies as well,
• 25:44
  some cars, we joke all the time that we call it fun wheel drive, right?
• 25:47
  For the front wheel drive guys that are out there, there's a concept that
• 25:50
  we throw around known as anticipated understeer, which translates to track out.
• 25:55
  So if you can get a front wheel drive in the corner correctly and rotate
• 25:59
  on its hind legs for a moment, it's.
• 26:01
  It will basically push its way out to track out.
• 26:04
  That is not a natural thing for a rear wheel drive car, but if you master those
• 26:08
  kind of, we'll call them techniques, you can make a front wheel drive very fast.
• 26:12
  Right.
• 26:12
  But it's unorthodox.
• 26:13
  So those are the kinds of things I'd be curious to see, like how a system
• 26:17
  like this would pick up on those, those nuances of the different types of cars.
• 26:20
  You know, there's a certain way to drive a Miata fast, but it's not necessarily
• 26:24
  the way you drive a Corvette fast.
• 26:25
  So I often argue like you that the line is this mythical thing.
• 26:29
  It's the baseline at which we all learn how to get around the track safely, but
• 26:34
  to go fast is an entirely different thing.
• 26:36
  Yeah.
• 26:37
  I could, I couldn't agree with that more.
• 26:38
  It's.
• 26:38
  You drive the car, not the track.
• 26:40
  You take advantage of the track.
• 26:41
  You take advantage of what the track gives you.
• 26:43
  Your goal is to drive the car at its limit.
• 26:45
  And by consequence of that, drive the tire at its limit, which is
• 26:48
  dictated by physics and for contact patches or for contact patches, right?
• 26:52
  There's ways that you have to manipulate.
• 26:54
  And I've got, I've got a lot of front wheel drive racing experience.
• 26:57
  Uh, so, you know what I'm talking about?
• 26:59
  I love front wheel drive cars.
• 27:00
  Yeah.
• 27:00
  I have a lot of conversations with guys that are diehard rear wheel
• 27:03
  drive cars about, you You know, that can't wrap their head around.
• 27:06
  Why would I ever want to drive a front wheel drive car?
• 27:08
  And it's a totally different approach, but it feels very different, right?
• 27:13
  It feels so different driving a front wheel drive car to a Miata, to a Corvette.
• 27:16
  But what the tire is experiencing to drive an optimal lap is very similar.
• 27:20
  Trying to get it into a similar place, right?
• 27:23
  You're trying to.
• 27:24
  Rotate like the rear tires are maybe sliding slightly more than the front
• 27:27
  entering a corner so that the car rotates more naturally without steering
• 27:31
  input and less scrub so that you can, you know, direct a car, the car
• 27:34
  to the exit and go to power sooner.
• 27:35
  And that's exacerbated in a front wheel drive car because you have these
• 27:38
  natural tendencies towards understeer from the time you get on the power.
• 27:42
  Right.
• 27:42
  But those types of things are why that kind of that fundamental, like
• 27:46
  we're trying to, we're using physics, tell people this all the time.
• 27:49
  And I think maybe Ross Bentley said it.
• 27:51
  Or Peter Krause or somebody that's my senior in this coaching, you
• 27:55
  know, industry and business.
• 27:56
  And the only laws that apply to driving are the laws of physics.
• 27:58
  There, there are no rules.
• 28:00
  There, there are suggestions.
• 28:01
  There are best practices.
• 28:02
  There are things that we do to safely get the car on the track.
• 28:05
  But when it comes to laws, it's the laws of physics.
• 28:07
  And that's why Apex Pro can work.
• 28:09
  The same way in a downforce dependent car as it can in a front wheel drive shit box.
• 28:13
  Yeah.
• 28:14
  . Yeah.
• 28:14
  Yeah, exactly.
• 28:15
  Which, and that's a, that's an endearing term in a, in a . No, it,
• 28:19
  it's, it's, it's plastered on the side of all of our front wheel drive cars.
• 28:22
  It's okay.
• 28:22
  Yeah.
• 28:22
  Shit.
• 28:23
  Box edition.
• 28:23
  It's all good . But uh, that being said, you know, again, going back to
• 28:28
  this kind of re-imagining of the data, a lot of people are hyper-focused on,
• 28:33
  I think two big things, the lap time.
• 28:36
  And the data that's coming from the car and you see it all the time.
• 28:38
  I mean, there's countless YouTube videos, man, look at
• 28:41
  my awesome lap at road Atlanta.
• 28:43
  And it's like in car video and OBD2 data.
• 28:46
  And you're like, is that lap really that good?
• 28:48
  What are you showing me here?
• 28:50
  Right.
• 28:50
  And in the days of Harry's being like the more prevalent one, you always saw the,
• 28:54
  like the little G meter that looked like it came out of grand Turismo or Forza.
• 28:58
  And you're like, it's so gimmicky.
• 29:00
  Right.
• 29:00
  So I guess the bigger question for.
• 29:02
  Folks that may be interested in this or looking to transition is they want to
• 29:05
  get that experience at the day, because they want to show their friends, they
• 29:09
  can't show their friends, blinky lights.
• 29:11
  So is there the equivalent to, you know, that smarty cam or that overlay or
• 29:17
  that OBDU data in the Apex pro system?
• 29:19
  Yeah, we have a, we have a.
• 29:21
  Video rendering and data syncing feature, uh, that's part of our
• 29:25
  advanced feature set within the app.
• 29:27
  You can basically, with a touch of a button, you can render your, your
• 29:30
  iPhone video with your, your data.
• 29:32
  So you can actually see the lights overlaid on the data.
• 29:35
  So you can go back and see your relative, you know, position, trajectory.
• 29:38
  Where are you on the track?
• 29:39
  And did I have any red lights or not?
• 29:41
  Right.
• 29:41
  Is that a place I need to go work on?
• 29:43
  Uh, and then also speed and some other things.
• 29:46
  And we're constantly adding capabilities to add different things to renderings.
• 29:49
  But it's very important to be able to have that hero lap.
• 29:52
  Cause we all go to the track for fun and we all want to
• 29:54
  show our friends what we did.
• 29:56
  And, uh, some people learn a lot from video, but that's
• 29:59
  definitely something you can do.
• 30:00
  There, there are certainly limitations, um, when you start talking about.
• 30:03
  Technology to phone cameras, to OBD, to information, what you
• 30:08
  can actually get from the car without going down a rabbit hole.
• 30:11
  Uh, and that's funny that you bring that up.
• 30:13
  Cause I spend a lot of time talking with drivers who come to me asking advice,
• 30:17
  thinking they need information from the car when really they're trying to learn
• 30:20
  their braking tendencies or something that's more about them as a driver,
• 30:24
  which is all, in my opinion, again, we talked about this 95 percent of drivers
• 30:28
  are going to get enough out of a driver.
• 30:30
  A GPS based standalone system to learn about their driving.
• 30:33
  If you need vehicle health measures, you need to make sure
• 30:36
  that you have that taken care of.
• 30:37
  But if you're just looking to like, learn about your driving, you don't
• 30:41
  need brake pressure and steering angle, even though it sounds, even though those
• 30:44
  are, those are things that they're like, well, I turn that and I press that.
• 30:47
  Right.
• 30:47
  I need those.
• 30:48
  Well, you can learn almost exactly what you're doing with those
• 30:51
  inputs from longitudinal and lateral g force inputs, right?
• 30:56
  It's not exactly the same, but it's even more powerful because
• 30:59
  it's the end result of your inputs.
• 31:01
  And you can, you can learn enough about it that for way less money.
• 31:04
  You can get to the same exact place.
• 31:06
  And I spend a lot of time talking with drivers about that.
• 31:09
  Like if you want to break pressure trace, turn your long G trace upside down.
• 31:12
  There are two data points that are missing from this equation that I actually
• 31:17
  think are relevant from the OBD2 data.
• 31:20
  And that's throttle position and RPM.
• 31:23
  Those cannot be derived, but those to me would be the only two data points
• 31:27
  that are valuable in that whole, you know, compilation of information.
• 31:31
  You're getting to your point, break pressure.
• 31:32
  You can, you can calculate that.
• 31:33
  You can figure that out steering angle.
• 31:35
  Who cares?
• 31:36
  But those other two points, they're so very finite.
• 31:39
  You know, you can get the exit speed of a corner.
• 31:41
  But at what RPM, what gear, you know, how much throttle was I at when I
• 31:46
  achieved that perfect exit speed?
• 31:47
  Was I at full throttle or did I back off a little bit and I was at half throttle?
• 31:51
  Or the other thing that it won't pick up is lift throttle over steer.
• 31:55
  If you drive with your pedal, you cannot sense that on any sort of GPS or gyro
• 32:01
  or anything, because you're feathering, you're working, you're making the car
• 32:05
  do things, and I think that you almost would get a false positive in that way.
• 32:09
  Yeah, there's, you know, the reason I mentioned brake pressure
• 32:11
  and steering is because no car communicates those over OBD2.
• 32:15
  It's on the CAN bus of modern cars.
• 32:17
  If you have a relatively new car, you can get that information by buying a
• 32:21
  device that can access the CAN bus.
• 32:23
  And it gets really confusing because.
• 32:25
  The OBD2 port can access CAN bus, but OBD2 and CAN are not the same thing.
• 32:30
  OBD2 is a standard that all automotive manufacturers agree to.
• 32:33
  And they, they're required to put some information that may be required, maybe
• 32:37
  coming from the CAN on a newer car or from something else on an older car.
• 32:41
  But you can access, and I'm glad you mentioned that you can access throttle
• 32:44
  position and RPM because those are required OBD2 standards, which means it's
• 32:49
  going to be less expensive regardless of if you're using the Apex Pro, OBD2.
• 32:53
  Device or if you're using someone else's OBD2 device, you can
• 32:56
  get throttle position and RPM.
• 32:58
  So I spend and a TPS trace throttle position sensor trace is very, very
• 33:03
  important to understand at a certain point in your driving and can teach you a
• 33:07
  lot, even, even really early on as well.
• 33:09
  Um, and then also with OBD2, you get something called pedal position.
• 33:13
  Which usually TPS is measuring the throttle position sensor.
• 33:16
  So the throttle body in most cars, um, which will be like, if you have a
• 33:20
  modern car with stability control or traction control, the TPS trace will
• 33:23
  be influenced by those if the throttle body is used for traction control on
• 33:27
  most cars, it is pedal position is the measurement of the throttle pedal.
• 33:31
  So you can actually more linearly see what your foot is doing.
• 33:34
  So on Apex pro, you can use our OBD2 device.
• 33:37
  That's a Bluetooth OBD2 that tethers in to the app, just like our standalone
• 33:41
  GPS and accelerometer hardware unit.
• 33:44
  And you can get all that information.
• 33:46
  Cause the question that you mentioned, Eric, what gear am I in?
• 33:48
  Is a, is a really important one.
• 33:50
  And that's not always super easy information to access.
• 33:53
  Cause it's kind of hard to remember that, especially when you're
• 33:55
  learning a new track, or maybe you're in a car that's new to you.
• 33:58
  Or you've changed gear ratios.
• 33:59
  That's a vital information to know and to compare.
• 34:02
  I can't tell you how often I remember doing this.
• 34:05
  Even before I was involved with Apex pro, I was traveling and doing
• 34:08
  some crew work for some pro teams.
• 34:10
  And then I got into professional racing myself.
• 34:12
  And I remember how often I saw the drivers when I was on the crew.
• 34:15
  And then myself with my team and engineers and stuff asking like,
• 34:19
  is this faster in third or fourth?
• 34:20
  I don't know.
• 34:21
  And it's not super easy to know.
• 34:23
  You can see in a speed trace where you up shift, right?
• 34:25
  So you can get a sense that I go to 4th there, but you can't always see that.
• 34:29
  Right?
• 34:29
  Or if you're in a PDK Porsche or a DSG BMW, you're not going to see
• 34:33
  those shifts in the speed trace.
• 34:34
  So being able to tell your position is pretty important when you're looking at
• 34:39
  that type, particularly a corner that's got like a 70 mile per hour minimum speed.
• 34:43
  In most cars, that's third or fourth gear.
• 34:45
  Yeah.
• 34:45
  So you make some really good points there.
• 34:46
  And TPS is really cool too.
• 34:48
  Once you get into it, cause you can see part of our learning curve.
• 34:51
  We over slow the entry of the corner pretty substantially.
• 34:53
  And we all have the tendency to go back to throttle before we can
• 34:57
  actually be at wide open throttle.
• 34:58
  To drive the car out of the corner.
• 35:00
  So we have to lift off the throttle again.
• 35:02
  You can see that in long G, you can see that in the speed trace, but you'll
• 35:05
  see it obviously in the TPS, right?
• 35:08
  It'll go flat line to the top.
• 35:10
  And the other thing is, if you really want to geek out, you can calculate the
• 35:13
  latency between the throttle position sensor at the pedal and the throttle
• 35:16
  position sensor at the throttle body.
• 35:19
  To figure out if you're lifting is actually doing anything.
• 35:22
  Cause some cars have a baked in delay there where lifting your
• 35:25
  foot actually isn't doing anything.
• 35:26
  And the motor is still at whatever position it was at exactly.
• 35:29
  So not to nerd out on that, but let's nerd out on something else again,
• 35:35
  which you brought up kind of alluded to, you know, going back to that,
• 35:38
  you know, ML versus AI, you said the system resets itself every time
• 35:43
  you go back out so you recalibrate.
• 35:46
  So one of the guiding principles of ML is that it has been feeded and seeded data
• 35:51
  and that it continues to evolve over time.
• 35:53
  So if it doesn't retain the data, now it's this goldfish kind of circling the castle.
• 35:58
  So is it really starting a new every time or is it an AI that
• 36:01
  is now recalculating on the fly?
• 36:03
  Bye bye.
• 36:03
  What you're doing based on that particular session.
• 36:05
  Yeah.
• 36:06
  But by that definition, it's, it's AI because you, it is, it starts
• 36:10
  from a baseline of like the software that's embedded in the circuit board
• 36:15
  basically has kind of a baseline fundamental understanding of like
• 36:18
  what we talked about, physics, Yeah.
• 36:20
  And that was calculated.
• 36:21
  That was the original testing that we did to kind of get the logic was in my Pirelli
• 36:26
  World Challenge, Honda Accord and Robbie Foley ran one in an MX5 and the MX5 Cup.
• 36:32
  And then we had a couple of downforce cars, um, that we used.
• 36:36
  We got kind of a wide range, a couple of high horsepower cars.
• 36:39
  I drove an LS swapped early 944.
• 36:42
  For a while, uh, that it was a friend of mine's car that if you went to full
• 36:45
  throttle too soon out of the corner, just shoot the axle out the side of the car.
• 36:48
  The most ridiculous early nine 44 is don't hold up super well to V8 swaps.
• 36:53
  So get a turbo.
• 36:54
  You're going to do it.
• 36:55
  Uh, yeah, 525 horsepower and a 27, 2, 700 pound nine 44 is really nuts, but yeah.
• 37:02
  So, so that's kind of like where the, so it's, it doesn't start from nothing.
• 37:05
  It starts from an understanding of the basic physics and driving dynamics.
• 37:09
  But yeah, by the definition, if you turn it off, right, then
• 37:12
  it's an AI software algorithm.
• 37:14
  So let's talk a little bit more about the Apex pro.
• 37:17
  And this is, you know, obviously where we'll probably start to
• 37:19
  differentiate it from some of the other systems that are out there.
• 37:22
  So, you know, I'm very intimate with, you know, the aim I've been
• 37:25
  using it for years, probably like a lot of our listeners that are
• 37:28
  tuning into this episode right now.
• 37:29
  A lot of us have gone through the, you know, the training and certification
• 37:32
  classes and stuff like that.
• 37:33
  One of their big things is they push.
• 37:35
  How many satellites are being used to get this exacting information to this,
• 37:39
  you know, minutiae of how many blades of grass you just blew over as you went
• 37:44
  through a corner and they, they, they emphasize how important that is, you
• 37:47
  know, where you are on the track at any given point, you know, were you an inch
• 37:51
  off of the apex, like they can give you that level of fidelity in the data.
• 37:55
  So, you know, their minimum is like eight satellites in order to triangulate on
• 37:58
  you when, you know, your typical in car.
• 38:00
  Satellite only uses three, you know, stuff like that.
• 38:03
  So I guess the question is because you are using a GPS receiver,
• 38:06
  let's start with that, how many GPS points is the apex using in order
• 38:10
  to create that level of granularity?
• 38:13
  Yeah, we, you need more than five to really even get to a use usable,
• 38:17
  you know, track position and in our.
• 38:19
  Opinion seven or eight, the baseline number of GPS satellites.
• 38:23
  I've learned a lot about GPS going through all this, but some of the
• 38:26
  natural limitations or GPS is it's controlled by depending on where you
• 38:30
  are, it's controlled by the department of defense in the U S maybe Phil can
• 38:33
  tell us more about that, but they only, they only allow you to get so accurate.
• 38:37
  for national security reasons.
• 38:39
  So three meters, that's one.
• 38:41
  Yeah.
• 38:41
  One meter, which is in racing terms, as far as like how far am I off the
• 38:45
  apex one meter might as well be a barn.
• 38:47
  Yeah.
• 38:49
  Yeah.
• 38:49
  You can drive a Miata through there, right?
• 38:51
  Like that's, that's too much, but I mean, that, that is very important.
• 38:55
  And that's a big differentiator between.
• 38:58
  Us and who we view as the primary, not necessarily competition, but where we're
• 39:02
  looking to bring customers into the Apex pro world as folks who are using
• 39:06
  their phone as a data logging device, that's where you're going to see the
• 39:09
  biggest difference between using like a phone with an app and then buying
• 39:12
  something like an Apex pro or a 10 Hertz GPS unit to get a better position.
• 39:16
  You're going to see a much more accurate position on the track.
• 39:19
  Now there are, you know, instances where, and you'll see this with any
• 39:22
  GPS system where you're going to have GPS satellite shift, or let's say we
• 39:26
  have seven satellites we're connected to, and one falls below the horizon.
• 39:29
  Now you have to reconnect to another satellite.
• 39:31
  Sometimes that's going to end up, you know, moving where you are.
• 39:35
  Sometimes that can affect the systems that we use to talk to the
• 39:38
  GPSs and all that sort of thing.
• 39:39
  You know, most of the GPS systems are using the U.
• 39:42
  S.
• 39:42
  GPS system.
• 39:43
  The Glonass system, which is the Russian system.
• 39:45
  And then there's a Chinese satellite network as well.
• 39:48
  So you're, you're able to tether to all these different satellites.
• 39:51
  So that's not a huge problem.
• 39:53
  But what is interesting about satellites is they're most accurate
• 39:56
  when they're low in the horizon.
• 39:58
  So like a GPS that's right above you is not good.
• 40:01
  Finding your position because it's not triangulated, right?
• 40:04
  You want like GPS is coming in from very far extreme kind of horizontal
• 40:09
  positions to position you accurately.
• 40:12
  So a good GPS program is going to be finding satellites
• 40:16
  that are low in the horizon.
• 40:17
  They're more likely to shift off the horizon and have
• 40:20
  to move in that direction.
• 40:20
  By that definition, we actually have, I'm working on an Apex pro online course
• 40:24
  that has some detailed information about GPS that I think is really fascinating.
• 40:28
  And for anybody that's more than just trivially interested in GPS, I think
• 40:32
  it's, it's important if you're using these systems, anything that's a GPS
• 40:36
  powered system to kind of understand the limitations, the capabilities.
• 40:40
  The natural tendencies of the technology.
• 40:42
  I don't know if I actually answer your original question.
• 40:44
  No, actually, you're, you're right on the money.
• 40:47
  I wanted you to go down this path so that people understand that it's not as simple
• 40:51
  as it looks and there's more to it, right?
• 40:53
  And your phone alone can't do it.
• 40:55
  And that's why, that's why.
• 40:56
  Specialty, you know, systems like this exist and that they exercise more
• 41:01
  points for more granularity and more fidelity and an easier ability to track
• 41:05
  where you are not only laterally, but, you know, even your elevation, right?
• 41:09
  All of that is factored in when you're talking about GPS.
• 41:12
  So we could nerd out on that.
• 41:13
  Probably all day long, but you know, there's some other things to that.
• 41:16
  And you know, when you look at it from a convenience perspective,
• 41:18
  people also leverage and go, well, my GPS thinks I'm at X track.
• 41:23
  So is that being done at least through the phone to geo locate, you know,
• 41:27
  off the cell towers and say, Hey, you're at summit point, or you're
• 41:29
  at VIR Carolina motor sports park.
• 41:31
  And then, so that is part of.
• 41:34
  The display package, but the apex pro itself doesn't really
• 41:37
  care what track you're at.
• 41:38
  Is that, would that be a true, true or fair statement?
• 41:40
  Yeah, yeah, that, that is, that's true.
• 41:42
  So when you open up your app and you had to connect your apex pro.
• 41:46
  And you've just driven from somewhere out of state to Road
• 41:50
  Atlanta or Thompson or Watkins Glen.
• 41:53
  It's going to use the phone GPS to say, Hey, are you at this, this track?
• 41:57
  Right.
• 41:58
  And provide different configurations if the track has them.
• 42:00
  And then you select them so that, you know, you have the proper track selected.
• 42:04
  Now you're good to go.
• 42:05
  Obviously it's when you hit start, the next time you cross start finish, it'll
• 42:08
  start tripping laps automatically.
• 42:10
  Right.
• 42:10
  It's nice and, and succinct.
• 42:12
  So the communication between the apex pro unit and the phone, I'm
• 42:15
  guessing is Bluetooth, right?
• 42:17
  It is.
• 42:17
  Yeah.
• 42:17
  It's Bluetooth low energy.
• 42:18
  And it, I believe the transmission rate between the two is 10 Hertz.
• 42:21
  So it's sending, it's sending data 10 times a second, not to be
• 42:24
  confused with the sample rate of like the actual algorithm and the
• 42:27
  sensors in the apex pro hardware.
• 42:29
  That's at a much, much, much higher sampling rate because
• 42:32
  at an extremely high rate.
• 42:34
  A good GPS system or necessary for motorsports is 10 Hertz in my opinion, and
• 42:39
  not really any more than that is necessary unless you're at a really high average
• 42:43
  lap speed, but some systems use higher frequency GPS is because they derive
• 42:48
  accelerometer measurements more from the GPS than the actual accelerometers.
• 42:52
  We use accelerometers for the accelerometer measurements.
• 42:55
  So does that mean that the apex then is caching data and then.
• 42:59
  Basically forklifting it over to the phone, or is it a near real time
• 43:02
  stream from the device to the phone?
• 43:05
  And the phone is a bit of a flight recorder.
• 43:07
  And then post processing occurs after you've completed your session.
• 43:11
  Yeah.
• 43:11
  So it's, it's actually sending that data over kind of in batches.
• 43:14
  Like when you trip a lap is when it's sending the bulk of
• 43:17
  the, of the communication of like the recorded information.
• 43:21
  So unlike like a Harry's where.
• 43:24
  I would be seeing it basically processed there in near real time.
• 43:28
  This is done after the fact.
• 43:29
  Yeah, it's a little more post.
• 43:30
  It's a little more post than like a live stream, right?
• 43:33
  Back and forth, but BLE like Bluetooth low energy is a really powerful tool for being
• 43:38
  able to transmit this kind of information.
• 43:40
  It's actually pretty impressive what it's capable of doing now.
• 43:42
  And you can also have multiple Bluetooth signals with it.
• 43:45
  You can do.
• 43:46
  All sorts of different things, which is why you can use the OBD2
• 43:49
  Bluetooth connector along with the Apex Pro on the same unit.
• 43:53
  That's probably going to raise another question for a lot of people.
• 43:55
  What's the minimum spec for the particular phone that they're going
• 43:59
  to have to run to do all this kind of processing as it's happening?
• 44:03
  Yeah, well, certainly the newer, the better in most cases.
• 44:06
  So we're, we're an iOS centric product, so we're focused on the Apple devices.
• 44:11
  That's a, that's a big conversation.
• 44:13
  There's a lot of reasons.
• 44:14
  For that, but fundamentally just to get it out of the way, we don't support
• 44:18
  Android actively currently, because when we started this business, my
• 44:21
  business partner, I had an Android developer, business partner, and
• 44:24
  another business partner decided to learn how to program for iOS and
• 44:28
  learn the Swift coding language.
• 44:30
  We ended up buying out our Android partner for like a hundred bucks or whatever,
• 44:33
  you know, it was like early days.
• 44:35
  My other partner, Mike, what's that I said, beer money.
• 44:38
  Probably.
• 44:39
  I, you know, this was like six years ago, right?
• 44:41
  It's like hard to even remember.
• 44:43
  And in 20 years, we'll do the, where are they now?
• 44:45
  And that guy will be like, I regret getting out when I can't
• 44:49
  believe case of Pabst blue ribbon.
• 44:54
  Oh, man, that's good.
• 44:56
  But, uh, so we ended up with iOS competency just because we
• 45:00
  had the analysis development.
• 45:01
  So we've pursued a lot of different options for Android and we decided,
• 45:04
  you know what, we have a really good.
• 45:06
  Really, really reliable, strong connection with the iOS devices.
• 45:09
  We're getting better and better and better.
• 45:10
  We're doing some other work outside of Apex pro for other
• 45:13
  customers in that space.
• 45:14
  So we're just going to stay in our lane.
• 45:15
  And now this is not like a leak or anything, but we're finding a way to get
• 45:19
  back into Android without having an out of house we've tried to grapple with.
• 45:24
  How do we avoid paying somebody?
• 45:25
  Several hundred thousand dollars to get a, an Android product
• 45:28
  that needs constant maintenance.
• 45:30
  That needs a lot of, that's not going to be exactly what we want, which is what
• 45:32
  you'll get with a, with an out of house.
• 45:34
  Plus there's too many flavors of Android, depending on the provider
• 45:37
  versus Apple as Apple is Apple at the end of the day, right?
• 45:41
  Yeah, there's, there's, there's a lot of simplicity there when you're
• 45:44
  looking at like, uh, options.
• 45:45
  You know, if you're actually, and this might be relevant, if you're listening
• 45:47
  to this and you're thinking, I have an idea for an app or a product.
• 45:50
  Android, you kind of have to make the tough decision of like, which versions
• 45:53
  of Android do you want to support and which hardware devices do you want
• 45:56
  to focus on, and you have to kind of auto select people out of your range.
• 46:00
  Cause you can't do them all.
• 46:00
  Cause they're, they're very different.
• 46:02
  Um, whereas with iOS, it's a much simpler structure for different hardware.
• 46:06
  So to answer your original question, any iOS device that runs iOS 14 will
• 46:10
  run the latest version of our app.
• 46:12
  Uh, and conceivably has enough power to do most everything.
• 46:15
  The data files are pretty small, like megabytes.
• 46:17
  You know, it's like a, like less than a picture of storage space that's
• 46:20
  going to take up on your device.
• 46:21
  So you don't need a ton of storage.
• 46:23
  Certainly RAM is helpful.
• 46:25
  So a newer phone with a newer processor, more RAM, you know, more
• 46:29
  storage is going to, is going to help.
• 46:31
  Uh, everything, if you're considering using your phone primarily for video,
• 46:34
  the iPhone 12 is one of the best, um, that I've seen with like stabilization
• 46:39
  or the iPhone six S is actually incredibly good with video state.
• 46:43
  That makes me wonder though, you know, you're talking about Apple devices
• 46:46
  and you know, this is where we're really geeking out here and hopefully
• 46:48
  the IT listeners are appreciating this, but you know, we all know
• 46:51
  that Apple devices run pretty hot.
• 46:54
  So there's always cooling concerns, especially when you're at the
• 46:57
  track on a hot day, you got that thing mounted up on your dashboard.
• 47:00
  And now it looks like something out of the Borg collective, right?
• 47:03
  We got wires coming in cause we got to keep power going to it all day long.
• 47:06
  We got our apex pro, we got our OBD two sensor.
• 47:09
  We got all this other stuff going on.
• 47:10
  Maybe I want to live stream on Twitch all at the same time.
• 47:13
  I don't know.
• 47:13
  Right.
• 47:14
  So that means you, you inevitably are greeted with Apple's version
• 47:17
  of the blue screen of death, which is like the core meltdown screen.
• 47:20
  What are some recommendations to get this thing to run cooler?
• 47:24
  Or have you guys optimized the code in such a way that it doesn't
• 47:27
  really overpower the device in these types of extreme conditions?
• 47:31
  Yeah.
• 47:31
  So the camera, uh, and filming or like being on a phone call or something,
• 47:36
  that's always going to take the most RAM.
• 47:38
  That's going to heat up the processor the most that's going to
• 47:40
  cause the most work from the phone.
• 47:42
  Um, the app itself is very low energy, so it is very well optimized for
• 47:46
  not being a huge draw from a heat generation standpoint, but you know,
• 47:51
  some, and I saw this in the show notes.
• 47:52
  I was like, you know, they're, they're the first person who's like actively
• 47:55
  addressed that as like a common issue.
• 47:56
  Like we need to talk about it because.
• 47:58
  Yeah.
• 47:58
  It is a problem.
• 47:59
  And you're going to run into that with any of your battery powered electronic
• 48:03
  devices in your car, particularly something like your smartphone.
• 48:06
  I will throw in that our very first event was in August at Roebling
• 48:10
  Road in Georgia and 95 degrees plus.
• 48:13
  And I've run my Apex with the phone in the window on a, on a windshield mount.
• 48:18
  Every event we've had in August at Roebling, I've never had an issue with
• 48:21
  it, like causing the phone to shut down.
• 48:23
  And that's running video because I'm a Laptime Plus subscriber.
• 48:26
  So it's, it's running the video for the laps and everything,
• 48:29
  and it's always just run fine.
• 48:30
  So, yeah, well, that, that's a, that's a good point.
• 48:32
  And that's where I was going to go with the tips for keeping it is that
• 48:35
  if you can keep your phone from like being contacting flat against a surface
• 48:40
  and that surface is really hot, that's a really good way to keep it cool.
• 48:43
  So keeping air around it.
• 48:44
  So a phone holder or, uh, um, something that's containing your phone that.
• 48:49
  Allows your phone to be exposed to, to air and the majority for
• 48:53
  the majority of the actual device.
• 48:55
  Or if you can put it somewhere shaded, like in a, in a glove box or in your
• 48:58
  pocket, uh, I, I very rarely see, um, and I, I do this a lot when I wear my driving
• 49:03
  suit, I'll go drive somebody's car, coaching client's car, or I'll be at an
• 49:07
  event where I'm hopping in people's cars to set data labs, or I'm riding right seat
• 49:11
  and I just keep my phone in my pocket.
• 49:12
  I put my Apex pro on the dash phone in the pocket.
• 49:14
  If you're in a situation where that's a viable solution for you,
• 49:17
  that's Phone's never going to, never going to overheat in that situation.
• 49:20
  Anytime you can keep it shaded, the times where you really run into the heat
• 49:24
  problems are when it's on or near metal that gets really hot, or when it's sitting
• 49:28
  flush, like flat on a dashboard or on a contact surface that has a lot of heat.
• 49:33
  Obviously you're going to get a lot of heat transfer, um, into the phone.
• 49:36
  So those are my best tips.
• 49:37
  Buy a good phone mount and that'll help you a lot.
• 49:39
  Does the Apex Pro have a dependency on the phone or are they mutually
• 49:45
  exclusive from each other?
• 49:46
  Meaning it will give you the feedback you're looking for.
• 49:49
  Whether your phone is present, you forgot it in the paddock, it's turned
• 49:52
  off, the battery died, et cetera.
• 49:53
  Are you still going to get the same experience or does
• 49:55
  the phone have to be there?
• 49:56
  The phone does not have to be there for the, for the real
• 49:59
  time information on the device.
• 50:01
  You can actually just turn the device on and never, never
• 50:03
  tether it with your phone.
• 50:04
  It's going to go through the same exact learning process,
• 50:08
  kind of adaptive play process.
• 50:10
  And how many laps does it take before it activates and does, and starts to show you
• 50:15
  information is about one lap, two laps.
• 50:18
  Yeah.
• 50:18
  And in a normal session on a two mile track, uh, if, unless you're like tire
• 50:22
  warming or there's a big train, right.
• 50:24
  It's, it's about a lap before you're going to see relevant information.
• 50:28
  I was testing some new stuff on the, just driving around on the office test
• 50:31
  track, like around the road today.
• 50:33
  And, uh, you know, I went into somewhere where I kind of do a little
• 50:36
  bit harder braking, a little more aggressive turn all well under the
• 50:39
  speed limit, probably 30 miles an hour.
• 50:40
  The second or third turn that I went through, I'm now seeing a A bunch
• 50:45
  of red lights that turn in showing me I'm not, you know, I don't have
• 50:47
  enough combined load in the corner.
• 50:49
  I knew I, at that steering angle, at that speed, I could probably
• 50:51
  go 20 miles an hour faster.
• 50:53
  Right.
• 50:54
  So can it determine start finish?
• 50:55
  Or is that relative to information on the phone?
• 50:58
  That's relative to information on the phone.
• 50:59
  It's not going to, it's not going to determine the start finish without
• 51:02
  looking at the phone because I'm sure people are curious, how does it know
• 51:06
  when you've reached the exact same corner again, so that it can compare
• 51:09
  the data from the previous time to tell you those red and green lights?
• 51:13
  So it knows when you cross start finish, right?
• 51:15
  And it knows your distance from start finish.
• 51:17
  But it's not actually using like the specific position on the track.
• 51:21
  It's kind of building a more holistic model.
• 51:23
  Okay.
• 51:24
  Um.
• 51:24
  But if the phone isn't present, then what happens?
• 51:27
  If the phone isn't present, then it doesn't, all it doesn't have is
• 51:29
  like the, the data to trip that.
• 51:31
  But it's not, it's, it's not dependent on like, Oh, you went through turn one.
• 51:35
  Last time doing this.
• 51:36
  It's it's just seeing the similar conditions and comparing
• 51:40
  it to other places, right?
• 51:42
  It's where you cross reference points or where it sees a repetition.
• 51:47
  Yeah, I gotcha.
• 51:47
  Okay, cool.
• 51:48
  No, because that could be a little confusing, you know, when you're
• 51:51
  talking about decoupling the phone and the unit and things like that.
• 51:54
  So I just wanted to clarify that.
• 51:56
  No, that's a good question.
• 51:57
  Which was going to lead into my next question, which is all of
• 52:00
  the software is on the phone.
• 52:03
  There's nothing for me on my PC or my laptop or anything like
• 52:06
  that to be able to download the data and then work with it there.
• 52:09
  It's all driven either by tablet or phone, right?
• 52:12
  Yeah.
• 52:12
  It's all iOS based.
• 52:14
  So.
• 52:14
  iPad, iPhone, and you're, you're touching on like my, my wishlist because I spend
• 52:19
  a lot of time on my, on my computer and I would love to be able to use my
• 52:23
  mouse for more dexterity with data.
• 52:25
  But there are some third party options currently like the track attack
• 52:28
  software that's fairly commonly used.
• 52:30
  And that's, it's kind of a data bridge.
• 52:32
  So you can take data from different systems and put it into track attack.
• 52:36
  And it does a pretty good job of combining it and letting it be comparable.
• 52:40
  Um, there's always going to be some differences because they're
• 52:42
  all using different systems.
• 52:43
  Sensors and they were mounted differently and there's not a lot of uniformity
• 52:47
  there, but that's a really good software.
• 52:49
  And you can take a CSV export from the Apex pro.
• 52:52
  So every Apex pro session can be sent or shared as a Apex session, which is like
• 52:56
  our, our iOS file that's proprietary to the Apex, the way that we save the data,
• 53:02
  uh, or you can send it as a CSV file, which you can do a number of things.
• 53:05
  Whatever you can do with a spreadsheet or a CSV file, you can do with that.
• 53:08
  So you can use it in.
• 53:09
  Like race render for your video overlays, um, so you can get more accurate,
• 53:13
  like GeForce and, and speed data, or you can use it in, in track attack,
• 53:17
  which is pretty popular, but that's certainly on the long term horizon.
• 53:21
  But what's interesting for those of you who may not know about
• 53:23
  Apple's like development, they are trying to marry to some extent.
• 53:27
  And Eric, you might know more about this than I do, but basically iPad OS is kind
• 53:31
  of migrating to be more interchangeable with Mac OS so that you could take
• 53:35
  an iPad app and put it on a Mac.
• 53:37
  And have the functionality between the different ways that you computer
• 53:40
  use a mouse and you click and on an iPad, you're using your finger.
• 53:43
  That's kind of where they seem to be going.
• 53:46
  And so that's a, that's a hashtag because Google and Chromebooks,
• 53:49
  but we'll, we'll leave it there.
• 53:51
  Right?
• 53:51
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 53:52
  So maybe we'll be able to benefit from that before too long.
• 53:55
  So, since we're talking about wishlist and to kind of round out
• 53:58
  our nerd out session here on, you know, how it works and the technology
• 54:01
  and what's involved and all that.
• 54:03
  I'm wondering any ideas on maybe putting an SD card on the unit and
• 54:07
  letting it do the recording locally and then be able to pull it down later.
• 54:11
  And then the second question, and I know this goes straight to some of
• 54:14
  the guys that listen to our show.
• 54:16
  Is there an API for Apex pro?
• 54:18
  So the SD card question, uh, I guess that's, that's been a
• 54:21
  common one from the beginning.
• 54:23
  Um, unfortunately the, the way the logistics, mostly the situation make
• 54:27
  it difficult because we're app based.
• 54:29
  So like a micro SD would be the easiest thing to package into the unit.
• 54:32
  But to get a micro SD into something into like a SD card reader, or just
• 54:37
  something that you can actually get into your phone, like your lightning plug on
• 54:40
  an iPhone to get the data into the app is a little bit of a challenge, right?
• 54:44
  Well, couldn't you then Bluetooth the device and then download from it or
• 54:47
  create a local wifi, almost like a GoPro?
• 54:49
  I mean, what I was thinking was with the SD card on there.
• 54:52
  Then the ML can go back and reference data points that it has from previous times.
• 54:58
  Now, granted, you'd have to give it some reference information that this data is
• 55:02
  summit point versus VIR, you know, let's not go down that rabbit hole, but I think
• 55:05
  it would be really cool if it did have onboard memory, could do a lot more with
• 55:09
  it, you know, from that respect, but it's kind of switching to the API, right?
• 55:14
  I know a lot of guys would like to.
• 55:16
  To dive into this and how do I access?
• 55:18
  What can I do?
• 55:18
  You know, is that an available option?
• 55:20
  We really don't have an open API and there's, that's just kind of
• 55:23
  how we've decided to approach this.
• 55:26
  We keep everything more or less focused on simplicity to the user.
• 55:30
  And some of that inherently comes with.
• 55:32
  A little bit more of the it's not open framework.
• 55:35
  It's not open structure.
• 55:36
  Now you can take the CSV data and do a lot of stuff with it.
• 55:39
  That's the limitations there, but we have strongly looked at the SD
• 55:43
  card or the internal storage is what we would call it internally.
• 55:48
  Pun intended to those Develop and utilize some of the things you're talking
• 55:52
  about, like iterating the, the, the ML through the various sessions, right.
• 55:57
  Or to you could technically like, yeah, like create a local wifi network, or
• 56:01
  you could even pull some of it via Bluetooth, but you run into some pretty
• 56:04
  big, again, logistical constraints.
• 56:06
  If we look at how our users are mostly interacting with the app, you really
• 56:10
  end up where I want to see my data.
• 56:12
  Right now after the session and know how fast I went.
• 56:14
  And that's a, that's a barrier.
• 56:16
  Cause you would have to kind of commit to the internal storage.
• 56:20
  We've been down that rabbit hole, I guess, is a good way to put it.
• 56:23
  It's an interesting, it's an interesting question, but there's the cool thing about
• 56:27
  those types of questions though, or that we really make one product right now.
• 56:30
  Uh, we make one hardware device and our ultimate goal is to be a long term
• 56:35
  player in the motor sports data world.
• 56:37
  And that's a world where there's a lot of niches within our motorsports
• 56:41
  niche that we need to cater to.
• 56:43
  And there's elements of it that might require an open API or might require
• 56:47
  the internal storage element where I don't have to have my phone in the car.
• 56:50
  And that's all stuff that we want to address.
• 56:52
  Eventually we just have to figure out who's our customer.
• 56:55
  What's our core business.
• 56:56
  How do we grow this customer base so that we're as healthy
• 56:58
  as possible as a business.
• 56:59
  And then we can go and address some of the other fine kind of
• 57:02
  areas that we've, that we've seen.
• 57:04
  Cause that, that has been a pretty common question.
• 57:06
  No, and, and not all of our listeners are computer scientists either.
• 57:09
  So we should probably get back to talking about cars and going fast
• 57:12
  and lap times and that kind of stuff.
• 57:15
  So I think the next question is, you know, as we're talking to different folks that
• 57:19
  have experience with different tools.
• 57:21
  Be it, like we talked about, you know, the, the Harry's lab timers, the aims,
• 57:25
  the new Garmin, you know, all those tools that are out there, there's
• 57:28
  always a learning curve and sometimes that's a barrier to entry, right?
• 57:31
  Some people just want it, want the easy button as Phil pointed
• 57:34
  out earlier or something else.
• 57:36
  So does Apex offer classes?
• 57:39
  What's the curricula like, you know, what's the expectation there?
• 57:42
  How long does it take?
• 57:43
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 57:44
  So we're actually working.
• 57:45
  And for those of you who are familiar with Apex pro already, you're probably
• 57:47
  going, yeah, I've done your webinars.
• 57:49
  So we, we already do address that in a lot of different ways, but we are working
• 57:52
  on an online course that you can take.
• 57:55
  That's probably less than an hour time commitment all in, end to end.
• 57:58
  And it's kind of everything you need to know to be a successful Apex pro user.
• 58:02
  What every single icon in the app does, uh, how we present the workflow and how
• 58:06
  it's kind of meant to meant to work, um, which obviously it's as user friendly
• 58:09
  as possible, but there's still all of us use software every day for work.
• 58:13
  And the only reason that we use it well is because we use it every day.
• 58:16
  And the unfortunate reality with motorsport software, the various
• 58:20
  data system software or any other things that the teams are using and
• 58:23
  stuff like that, unless you're using it constantly, you don't get those.
• 58:26
  You're not getting that seat time to have that recall and that
• 58:29
  muscle memory and that familiarity.
• 58:31
  So we're trying to combat that with.
• 58:33
  More education, better UI, better overall UX for how user user interface,
• 58:38
  user experience for how people interact with the product to make it
• 58:41
  simpler to get to the important stuff.
• 58:43
  But currently our course format, if you kind of look at like from the
• 58:46
  funnel, from the top down, we have a Facebook live kind of session that I
• 58:50
  do sometimes weekly, sometimes monthly.
• 58:52
  I try to be consistent where we have guests.
• 58:54
  We kind of talk about Apex pro to cursory level.
• 58:56
  We mostly highlight different areas of motorsport, whether it be safety
• 59:00
  or in some of the ways, maybe some of the topics you're addressing here,
• 59:03
  just different format, much shorter.
• 59:05
  And then we kind of moved down from there.
• 59:06
  We use that to promote our webinars, which some are free.
• 59:09
  We have an intro to Apex pro webinar that we do once a quarter that goes
• 59:13
  out to everybody who's purchased an Apex pro in the last couple of months.
• 59:16
  And they get invited to take a free webinar.
• 59:19
  And that's an hour long, me presenting for about 40 minutes
• 59:22
  and then people asking questions.
• 59:23
  And we see a ton of excellent feedback from that because of that.
• 59:27
  Hey, I have my specific question.
• 59:28
  I want to ask it this way.
• 59:29
  And so that's been really successful.
• 59:31
  And then from there, we go a little deeper and we do paid webinars, which range from
• 59:34
  like 29 for lifetime or plus subscribers.
• 59:37
  Up to 59.
• 59:39
  If we have a guest and we'll cover topics as simple as the speed trace.
• 59:43
  And I say simple, if you don't know what that is, it's, it's a
• 59:45
  very foundational thing in data.
• 59:47
  And it's only simple if you know what it is or know, know of it, or how to
• 59:51
  use Apex pro the Apex pro lights to assess your corner entry speed, right?
• 59:55
  That was a whole webinar just on corner entry phase, Apex pro lights, correlating
• 59:59
  the two all the way down to a race craft or more specific driving techniques.
• 1:00:03
  I might not even be.
• 1:00:04
  Data related, but we see a demand for that or people talking about it within our,
• 1:00:09
  you know, online communities and stuff.
• 1:00:11
  So, yeah, that's the process we have.
• 1:00:12
  We have a couple of different ways to interact with our education.
• 1:00:15
  And before too long, you'll start seeing a more formalized like online
• 1:00:18
  course that will kind of give you a certification for learning it
• 1:00:21
  and quiz you on different aspects.
• 1:00:23
  So you kind of retain it.
• 1:00:25
  And there's some stuff in the app as well that can teach you.
• 1:00:27
  And there's a little question mark, but if you tap it, it walks you through
• 1:00:29
  everything that's happening in the app.
• 1:00:31
  Phil, you mentioned on the other episode, you did something called data and donuts.
• 1:00:35
  Do you want to talk about that a little bit?
• 1:00:36
  That was actually, it was a spinoff of what Andrew had done.
• 1:00:41
  At their location in Birmingham, I sat down with him and then we had
• 1:00:45
  another instructor, Clifford Robertson, who is one of our Apex pro reps.
• 1:00:50
  When he can come and rep the product at our events, he'll come and demo
• 1:00:54
  it for people, put it in people's cars, help them interpret their data.
• 1:00:57
  And so we got with Andrew because we wanted to host.
• 1:01:01
  Uh, data and donuts at our garage club and sat down, I guess we spent what,
• 1:01:05
  an hour and a half on webinar, you and I and Clifford, and honestly, as
• 1:01:10
  a dealer and as a, as an end user, I learned so much about it in, like he
• 1:01:15
  said, you could really dive in deep and become an expert in this device.
• 1:01:19
  In an hour, an hour and a half, it doesn't take weeks of learning different
• 1:01:23
  points to be able to understand it.
• 1:01:25
  And then you can pass that information on.
• 1:01:27
  We did that.
• 1:01:28
  We helped people learn, like he said, the speed trace.
• 1:01:31
  And then also as a provider for HPDs and, and a dealer, I can take this device
• 1:01:37
  and put it in somebody's car, hook them up on their phone, let them run one
• 1:01:41
  session, come back in, spend 10 minutes with them sitting down, and then And
• 1:01:45
  showing them a couple things and they disappear and play with it for half a
• 1:01:48
  day and they buy it because it's that user Friendly and then if they've got a
• 1:01:53
  buddy that has it the social aspect of the apex pros You can share your session
• 1:01:57
  data between other people that have the device and have the have the app
• 1:02:02
  to compare data so you can overlay your buddy's lap over yours or vice versa.
• 1:02:07
  I can send data to Andrew and he can look at it and say, Hey,
• 1:02:10
  you know, you suck right here.
• 1:02:11
  So, which is pretty much what he'd say everywhere.
• 1:02:15
  I think, for me anyway, I'm still learning, but, uh, it's such a,
• 1:02:20
  to me, it's such a, a, a simple.
• 1:02:23
  Intuitive system for people to put in their car and, and learn how to drive
• 1:02:28
  faster that until they, until they put their hands on it and use it, they don't
• 1:02:32
  realize, wow, this is, this is great.
• 1:02:34
  And so, like I said, if we put one in a person's car, 90 percent of
• 1:02:37
  the time, they're going to buy it.
• 1:02:38
  And it's just.
• 1:02:39
  They kind of sell themselves because once they played with it,
• 1:02:42
  they're like, man, this is awesome.
• 1:02:43
  And, and I have got real world stories of people showing up, putting an apex
• 1:02:47
  pro and they're familiar with the track.
• 1:02:49
  You put an apex pro in their car in the morning by lunchtime, they're
• 1:02:52
  two seconds faster just from.
• 1:02:55
  watching the lights or looking at a little bit of session data afterwards
• 1:02:59
  and realizing, Oh, I'm leaving, I'm leaving speed on the table in this corner.
• 1:03:02
  And it's that easy to use and to help yourself improve.
• 1:03:06
  So it's a great, it's a great system.
• 1:03:09
  I was really honored when you, when you did the data and donuts of them,
• 1:03:11
  we had, we had these, uh, winter, uh, you know, gatherings that we started
• 1:03:15
  doing in the off season last year.
• 1:03:17
  Before COVID hit, obviously, and had a bunch of people in the office.
• 1:03:20
  I bought coffee and donuts for everybody.
• 1:03:22
  And we just talked about, you know, kind of did a focused on our local
• 1:03:26
  tracks, you know, our home tracks in our area and had 15, 20 people.
• 1:03:30
  And they all shared their data and we talked about it, what it meant.
• 1:03:32
  And I, I started to learn the power of the community aspect of
• 1:03:35
  data where you hear somebody else.
• 1:03:38
  Say what they see and then someone else sees it and they
• 1:03:41
  go, well, I see this, right.
• 1:03:42
  And you all start talking about, and then you end up in this
• 1:03:44
  kind of subjective conversation.
• 1:03:46
  That's more kind of big picture.
• 1:03:47
  And then you kind of go back to the data and you're like, but that says
• 1:03:50
  that that's not necessarily right.
• 1:03:52
  The way we've all been doing it.
• 1:03:53
  And so I had a bunch of people who drive Barbara motorsports park a lot in here.
• 1:03:58
  That I know drive it a certain way.
• 1:03:59
  They turn in too late in a lot of places, right?
• 1:04:02
  Way too late because they've been taught the traditional HPD safer late turn in
• 1:04:06
  to the point where they're adding more steering angle and it's probably not
• 1:04:09
  safer, but we debunked a lot of those myths, not by me saying, Hey, you're
• 1:04:13
  turning into late and you're slow.
• 1:04:14
  But by saying, tell me what you see, uh, and here's a faster
• 1:04:17
  driver and here's a slower driver.
• 1:04:18
  And so that, that became really powerful.
• 1:04:20
  And so a lot of the tools that we have in the app, uh, you know,
• 1:04:23
  you can airdrop data to people.
• 1:04:26
  And that has really been very popular.
• 1:04:28
  And then our crew view features where you can see other users on track.
• 1:04:32
  So you can hop on there and see like a map view and see if
• 1:04:34
  someone else is driving today.
• 1:04:36
  Uh, and then you can also submit your records to compete against other
• 1:04:39
  Apex Pro users to see where your lap times, uh, stack up with other people.
• 1:04:43
  And that all is, is we've been working on that in the off season to, to improve it.
• 1:04:48
  Um, but I just want to say quickly, Eric, as well to, to folks who are using
• 1:04:52
  another system, that's more detailed, a little more like a Excel spreadsheet
• 1:04:56
  kind of vibe, just so you know who I'm addressing, there's a lot of power there.
• 1:05:00
  There's an enormous amount of power there.
• 1:05:02
  And if you love making math channels.
• 1:05:05
  And you get a lot of benefit out of that.
• 1:05:06
  That's value to you.
• 1:05:08
  That's very high value.
• 1:05:09
  If you're tiptoeing through that software and every time you get into it, you're
• 1:05:13
  like, Oh man, I forgot how to navigate this stuff, or like, this is such a
• 1:05:16
  pain that I can't get laps displayed.
• 1:05:18
  Apex pro is an extremely good alternative for you.
• 1:05:21
  You're going to get to that point and get to where the data is in front of you
• 1:05:24
  in an immense, smaller amount of time.
• 1:05:27
  And then you're really going to be starting to think about.
• 1:05:29
  The actual driving aspect.
• 1:05:30
  So I kind of gauge my success as like a salesman for the product
• 1:05:35
  and a marketer is like, how many conversations do I have that are
• 1:05:37
  about driving versus tech support?
• 1:05:40
  And it usually skews more towards driving, right?
• 1:05:42
  It was, it was more tech support early and we're still developing stuff.
• 1:05:46
  And as the UI gets better, that gets smaller, but the amount of driving
• 1:05:49
  conversations, the amount of emails I get with just like a screenshot or
• 1:05:52
  a data session that says, what do you think about this or how did this go?
• 1:05:55
  I post on our, our Facebook group.
• 1:05:57
  What about this?
• 1:05:58
  I think that's a good indicator of that's where we want to get with data.
• 1:06:02
  Cause like, like we said at the beginning, we're trying to break the barrier down
• 1:06:05
  to being kind of a scary thing and just, yeah, there's some complexity and there's
• 1:06:09
  some detail there, but anybody can do it.
• 1:06:11
  Anybody can learn it.
• 1:06:12
  If you can drive your car on track, that's a lot harder than learning data.
• 1:06:15
  Uh, and that's, that's what we're trying to promote.
• 1:06:17
  Now that we've talked about education, there's still one more big question on
• 1:06:21
  the table, but we're going to save that until after this next one, which is many
• 1:06:25
  of the telemetry systems are often touted as multi discipline and plenty of us use
• 1:06:31
  our cars at the track, maybe at autocross.
• 1:06:33
  Maybe there's some of us that do rally cross, whatever, and your
• 1:06:37
  product and competing products claim that they can work in a multitude
• 1:06:41
  of different, you know, motorsports, uh, arenas, disciplines, et cetera.
• 1:06:45
  How does this work?
• 1:06:47
  Right.
• 1:06:47
  I get it from a track perspective, rally, cross, you know, anything
• 1:06:50
  that circuit base makes sense, but for a point to point, like an auto
• 1:06:54
  cross or, or a time distance rally or anything like that, how does that work?
• 1:06:59
  And more importantly, for our other listeners, does Apex pro work on
• 1:07:03
  a motorcycle or with go karts?
• 1:07:06
  Yeah.
• 1:07:06
  Good questions.
• 1:07:07
  The, uh, certainly the, the, the feedback element works the best on the circuit.
• 1:07:11
  As far as giving it the most information to be the most useful for you.
• 1:07:15
  But if you're looking for, uh, high quality lap times, high resolution data.
• 1:07:20
  You know, better stuff that you can, much, much better information than you can
• 1:07:23
  capture from your smartphone in a point to point environment, autocross, hill
• 1:07:27
  climb, rally cross, something like that.
• 1:07:29
  It does work great.
• 1:07:30
  Custom track feature that we have.
• 1:07:32
  Um, in my opinion, it's really easy to use.
• 1:07:34
  You basically set your start finish points that you actually
• 1:07:37
  take the device with you.
• 1:07:38
  It uses the GPS, so it gets a more granular position from the actual device.
• 1:07:43
  And you carry it with you on your first walk.
• 1:07:45
  And you go stand by the start gate and the finish gate.
• 1:07:47
  Uh, you don't have to walk the whole course.
• 1:07:49
  Uh, same for any other point to point course or a custom circuit course.
• 1:07:53
  Um, you can also do it just like driving in your car.
• 1:07:55
  You can set the start gate, just like drive up to the start, finish, and tap.
• 1:07:58
  You know, set start point.
• 1:07:59
  The data is a little, you know, I don't want to say different in autocross,
• 1:08:02
  what you value from the data is slightly different than what you value
• 1:08:05
  from when you value on a road course.
• 1:08:07
  Distance is really important in autocross.
• 1:08:09
  Like how much distance did I travel?
• 1:08:11
  And so there's all those tools to access in the app.
• 1:08:14
  If you want to see things based on like how much distance did I
• 1:08:17
  travel on this lap versus this lap?
• 1:08:18
  Because that a lot of times indicates autocross.
• 1:08:22
  And usually towards the end of the run as well, you're going to get
• 1:08:24
  some utility out of the lights.
• 1:08:26
  Particularly if you do multiple runs without turning.
• 1:08:28
  So the, the model itself, I should say that only when you power off the
• 1:08:31
  unit with the button on the side of the unit is what resets the model.
• 1:08:35
  If you hit start and stop on your session, as long as you keep the power
• 1:08:38
  on, on the unit, that display model, the underlying Apex pro algorithm is going to
• 1:08:43
  keep building on itself, keep adapting.
• 1:08:45
  So that's, that's going to be helpful.
• 1:08:46
  And carts and motorcycles, the GPS based data works great on a motorcycle.
• 1:08:51
  You're not going to get the same real time grip related feedback on a motorcycle.
• 1:08:55
  Cause the dynamics are so different, you know, you've got two contact
• 1:08:58
  patches instead of four, that's a slightly different problem to solve.
• 1:09:01
  Uh, and then on carts, in my experience, yeah, it works great on a cart.
• 1:09:04
  It's just a little more violent of an environment, harder
• 1:09:07
  to fit your phone with you.
• 1:09:08
  So there are products that are more specifically designed for those areas.
• 1:09:12
  But if you already have an Apex pro.
• 1:09:14
  You're primarily like an autocrosser or a track day or club racer,
• 1:09:18
  then yes, you can absolutely use them in those other environments.
• 1:09:21
  Yeah.
• 1:09:21
  And it's not advised to mount the Apex Pro to the steering wheel on a go kart.
• 1:09:24
  Like we do everything on a go kart.
• 1:09:26
  So not, not a good idea.
• 1:09:28
  You're going to get false data.
• 1:09:29
  It's not going to help you.
• 1:09:30
  Yeah.
• 1:09:31
  It's going to look, the data is going to look kind of jumbly.
• 1:09:33
  You know, the 900 pound gorilla, that final question about the Apex Pro, right?
• 1:09:37
  The thing that's now on everybody's mind, they're excited about this.
• 1:09:40
  They're really psyched up.
• 1:09:40
  They want to try it out.
• 1:09:41
  What's it cost?
• 1:09:43
  Apex Pro is 549.
• 1:09:44
  So 549 bucks.
• 1:09:45
  The app, the majority of the features are free.
• 1:09:48
  So what I suggest that people do, if you're in the market for this type of
• 1:09:51
  product, you can shop around and find some stuff that's within 100 either way.
• 1:09:55
  But I would definitely recommend downloading the Apex pro app for free.
• 1:09:59
  There's sample data in there.
• 1:10:00
  You can get your friends to send you data.
• 1:10:02
  There's no restriction on how much data you can have from
• 1:10:04
  your friends on your phone.
• 1:10:06
  Hop on the Apex pro users group requests, you know, that people
• 1:10:09
  send you some data, reach out to us.
• 1:10:11
  I have data from like every track in North America that
• 1:10:13
  I'd be happy to share with you.
• 1:10:15
  Apex at apex track coach.
• 1:10:16
  com.
• 1:10:17
  And watch our webinars.
• 1:10:19
  That's the best way to shop for an Apex pro is to get involved
• 1:10:22
  with the community and see how people interact with the product.
• 1:10:25
  Take on one of our webinars before you invest in the product itself.
• 1:10:29
  Um, and then the units 549.
• 1:10:31
  And then if you want to unlock more features in the app.
• 1:10:34
  We have like a yearly membership.
• 1:10:35
  It's a hundred dollars a year that unlocks all this additional functionality.
• 1:10:39
  And there's all, it's constantly evolving.
• 1:10:40
  So we've got a whole slate of stuff coming for this track season for that.
• 1:10:44
  And there's also a monthly option for that as well.
• 1:10:47
  Um, that's nine, nine, nine, nine.
• 1:10:49
  That's the lap timer plus, correct?
• 1:10:50
  Lap timer plus.
• 1:10:51
  And that's what also allows you to render the video overlay from your phone video.
• 1:10:57
  from the unit overlaid on your video, literally while you're sitting right there
• 1:11:01
  at the track, and then you can edit that and send a portion to somebody and say,
• 1:11:05
  Hey, how did I go through this corner?
• 1:11:07
  How did it look?
• 1:11:08
  And they can see your data and your video all at one time.
• 1:11:11
  And I mean, it's, it happens within minutes, which is one of the things that
• 1:11:14
  I love is you don't have to go home and plug into track attack or something else.
• 1:11:18
  And, and, you know, do all this combining of data and video and information.
• 1:11:22
  It's just, it's right there.
• 1:11:24
  So that's one of the features.
• 1:11:26
  That's why I'm a Laptime Plus subscriber.
• 1:11:28
  And it unlocks additional functionality too.
• 1:11:31
  You know, you get predictive lap timing on the phone screen, a whole bunch of
• 1:11:34
  new data channels, try to release like a custom channel every couple of months, um,
• 1:11:39
  you get some extra functionality with the OBD2 device, the gear position calculator.
• 1:11:44
  Um, you can do sector times and see theoretical best lap times.
• 1:11:47
  You can do all sorts of different stuff.
• 1:11:49
  GPS grade is one of my favorite.
• 1:11:51
  The theoretical best lap time by the sectors is actually very helpful
• 1:11:56
  because you can look at, you know, it takes all your best sectors over the
• 1:12:00
  course of your day or your session and plugs them in together and
• 1:12:03
  says, okay, so if Bill ran a one 26.
• 1:12:06
  Whatever it Roebling his best time now instead of one 26, 70
• 1:12:09
  is one 26 Oh three or something.
• 1:12:11
  So I know pretty quickly that, okay, I'm leaving half a second on the table.
• 1:12:15
  So just another great feature.
• 1:12:16
  Yeah.
• 1:12:17
  And that's a, that's something that if you're using data now, you're
• 1:12:20
  probably familiar with, or if you're coming from iRacing, you're probably
• 1:12:22
  familiar with, and that's, you can really get granular with sectors.
• 1:12:26
  So Laptimer plus is designed for people that want easy video rendering overlay.
• 1:12:31
  Predictive lap time displayed on their phone, or they want
• 1:12:34
  more advanced data features.
• 1:12:36
  So that's who that's for, but you can get a lot of utility out
• 1:12:39
  of the app without subscribing.
• 1:12:41
  So the, the, what I advise people to do is once you do your research, buy
• 1:12:44
  the hardware, use that, get to know the app, decide eventually, if you want to
• 1:12:48
  upgrade to like an OBD2 device, we sell a phone mount to display your phone.
• 1:12:52
  And then.
• 1:12:53
  What features does lifetime or plus hold that I think that I can leverage
• 1:12:56
  and use that, that I want and try it out for a month and then, and then buy
• 1:12:59
  the annual to get the discount, right?
• 1:13:00
  Cause it's, it's 20, 30 bucks less to buy the annual.
• 1:13:04
  So as Phil, you know, very eloquently pointed out at the top of our
• 1:13:08
  conversation, the number one mod.
• 1:13:11
  is always seat time for any driver.
• 1:13:13
  It's all about experience.
• 1:13:14
  It's all about being on track.
• 1:13:16
  To your point earlier, Andrew, it's about that muscle memory, you know,
• 1:13:18
  and using the software over and over again and getting acclimated to it.
• 1:13:21
  So you don't forget things.
• 1:13:23
  But at the end of the day, all of these telemetry systems don't do
• 1:13:28
  the work for you as a driver, right?
• 1:13:30
  They're a guide and we don't want to falsely get anyone's hopes up.
• 1:13:33
  So what kind of Results should people expect to see from a tool like apex
• 1:13:38
  pro, will they go slower at first because they have to build faith in
• 1:13:42
  the system or are the results really immediate so long as they follow the
• 1:13:46
  given recommendations of the system?
• 1:13:48
  You know, I don't want to say that if you buy this product, you will
• 1:13:51
  go faster because I don't think that's the case for everybody.
• 1:13:54
  I think it's, I think it strongly increases the likelihood that you will.
• 1:13:58
  Whether that be just from an in car reminder or something that you notice
• 1:14:02
  on the display or from you learning in the data, what it does do and what we
• 1:14:06
  try to focus on as a company, kind of like we talked about at the top, we're
• 1:14:09
  trying to make everyone an Apex pro.
• 1:14:11
  And what that means is not that you can set the fastest lap time because
• 1:14:14
  lap time is kind of a roving metric.
• 1:14:16
  It's not really a good indicator of proper driving performance.
• 1:14:20
  We want you to have proper driving technique and exhibit.
• 1:14:23
  Good driving technique across the board.
• 1:14:25
  And that's really what we want to do.
• 1:14:26
  So I think if you get plugged into the Apex pro community and you buy an Apex
• 1:14:30
  pro and you start to learn how to use the data, you can expect your driving
• 1:14:34
  technique to improve if you are willing to put in the work, the consequence of
• 1:14:38
  that is always better lap times, driving technique, and sometimes you're right.
• 1:14:42
  You make it, you make a point, Eric, sometimes.
• 1:14:45
  And I do this when I'm coaching people personally say, Hey, can you do this
• 1:14:48
  my way right for now, like, just, just do it the way that I'm asking you to,
• 1:14:52
  and that might be slower, but we're building a foundation and data is
• 1:14:55
  kind of going to do the same thing.
• 1:14:56
  It might cause you to take some pause to learn, but it's going
• 1:15:00
  to open up a world of improvement that you didn't know it was there.
• 1:15:04
  So I would say it's pretty common to hear.
• 1:15:06
  Testimonies from customers like Phil saying, Hey, I looked at the data.
• 1:15:10
  I heard you say something about this corner on this track.
• 1:15:13
  I started to recognize that I'm over slowing in this corner because now I'm
• 1:15:16
  using the data and I can see that and I've tracked my improvement and now I'm
• 1:15:20
  going a second faster just like that.
• 1:15:22
  I've certainly had people call me and say, I'm 10 seconds faster because
• 1:15:26
  I'm using your stuff now, right?
• 1:15:27
  That's like the embellished.
• 1:15:28
  Yeah, your mileage may vary, right?
• 1:15:32
  Yeah, exactly.
• 1:15:33
  Your mileage will definitely vary, but I know just from personal
• 1:15:36
  experience, and I really haven't done a whole lot of modifications to
• 1:15:39
  my car other than adding a hardtop.
• 1:15:41
  From the first time I put an Apex Pro in it, and this is just road Atlanta, to the
• 1:15:46
  last time I rode or drove road Atlanta, was from a minute 57 to a minute 48.
• 1:15:52
  And that's 9 seconds in a 112 horsepower car.
• 1:15:55
  That's a lot of improvement.
• 1:15:57
  It's and it is seat time too.
• 1:15:58
  It's just learning.
• 1:15:59
  I mean, I've picked his brain about red Atlanta countless times because he's a
• 1:16:03
  great asset to have, and as a dealer, I have extra extra access, but it's
• 1:16:09
  mainly sitting there and going through the data in the device and using that
• 1:16:12
  as a tool to teach me, okay, I'm leaving time on the table here, here, and here.
• 1:16:19
  That's what it tells me.
• 1:16:20
  So, so then I trust the app.
• 1:16:22
  And when you actually turn in earlier at six and you stay in the throttle and,
• 1:16:27
  Oh, Hey, look, it sticks because the data has been telling you that it will.
• 1:16:30
  And then you go a second faster.
• 1:16:32
  It's a, it's a, it's a very powerful tool in my opinion, at least
• 1:16:35
  for an entry level data device.
• 1:16:38
  For new drivers or even experienced drivers.
• 1:16:41
  So it's just a great product.
• 1:16:42
  Yeah, I would say that's, that's a common experience.
• 1:16:44
  And if you certainly begin to peel back the layers of what data can
• 1:16:48
  offer you, you can expect there to be a lot of benefit, both in your
• 1:16:51
  understanding and in your speed.
• 1:16:53
  And that's what we try.
• 1:16:54
  That's the.
• 1:16:55
  That's the book that we try to be to people, the resource that we try to be.
• 1:16:58
  All right.
• 1:16:58
  So Andrew, you know, with every good software or hardware application, you
• 1:17:03
  can't just stay on version one forever.
• 1:17:06
  So what does the future of Apex pro look like?
• 1:17:10
  Is there a version two coming?
• 1:17:11
  And if so, what's involved?
• 1:17:12
  Yeah, excellent question.
• 1:17:14
  Uh, so, so there is, like you said, especially in the technology space,
• 1:17:17
  you're constantly trying to improve the product because every, it seems like every
• 1:17:21
  day You learn about something new that comes out, some new sensor or, you know,
• 1:17:26
  hardware component or programming style or something that can be, you know, used to
• 1:17:30
  your benefit that can improve the product.
• 1:17:33
  And so you can do some firmware updates and some software updates.
• 1:17:36
  Obviously in our world, we have.
• 1:17:38
  Hardware and an app.
• 1:17:39
  So we can kind of augment, you know, the user experience with it, with software
• 1:17:42
  updates, and when it comes down to it, we released the first generation Apex
• 1:17:46
  pro device in 2017, and it's now 2021 and technology has come a long way.
• 1:17:51
  So we can now get similarly priced sensors like I'm using GPS's.
• 1:17:55
  With more capability from what we were using four years ago.
• 1:17:58
  So yeah, Apex Pro Gen 2 is on the docket for spring 2021.
• 1:18:01
  So in May of 2021, you'll probably see us announcing the release of this
• 1:18:06
  new device, which is really exciting.
• 1:18:08
  So what are some of the expectations for somebody that's going to be
• 1:18:10
  picking up a Gen 2 versus a Gen 1?
• 1:18:12
  Other than the IMU and GPS changes, is there anything that's coming?
• 1:18:15
  Yeah, it's, uh, it's fundamentally different, uh, and, and better.
• 1:18:19
  I should say it's very much the same ethos.
• 1:18:22
  And as far as how the product functions, the user.
• 1:18:25
  We'll have a very similar experience as far as connecting to it with
• 1:18:27
  Bluetooth, using their phone as kind of the remote control and the data review
• 1:18:32
  tool, but the actual Apex Pro hardware is going to be totally different.
• 1:18:35
  It's a brand new circuit board, totally redesigned, but we're using
• 1:18:39
  a different battery using the new GPS and a bigger GPS antenna using a newer
• 1:18:43
  version of the same, uh, nine axis IMU.
• 1:18:46
  But the big thing is that we, um, at Apex Pro, and not a lot of people
• 1:18:49
  know this, but outside of motorsports, when we first designed Apex Pro, we
• 1:18:54
  How to do this connected technology thing where we're using Bluetooth
• 1:18:57
  to communicate with hardware.
• 1:18:58
  And since then, we've kind of expanded on that capability and we have.
• 1:19:02
  Another business under our roof that's been developing products
• 1:19:05
  for other industries, for other customers, for other niches.
• 1:19:08
  So we've done industrial products.
• 1:19:10
  We've done a yacht IOT product, which is super, super cool.
• 1:19:14
  Like retrofitting older boats with ballast sensors and GPS and streaming
• 1:19:18
  it all through a wifi hub to your phone.
• 1:19:20
  So you can see a bunch of information, indoor positioning systems for like.
• 1:19:24
  Big overhead cranes and manufacturing facilities, done some athletic
• 1:19:27
  stuff with sensors on golf clubs and human athletes and stuff like that.
• 1:19:31
  So long story short, we've developed a lot of products since
• 1:19:34
  we originally launched Apex Pro.
• 1:19:36
  So just kind of the natural evolution into the second gen Apex Pro device.
• 1:19:39
  We're coming at it with a lot more competency and a lot more refinement.
• 1:19:43
  So now I feel really confident that this device is just going to come
• 1:19:46
  out of the gate and be perfect.
• 1:19:47
  Better in every way, more reliable, better battery life, better sensors,
• 1:19:50
  better quality data to the end user.
• 1:19:52
  Ultimately, uh, we actually, we ended up improving the Apex pro coaching model,
• 1:19:56
  which is what displays on the LEDs.
• 1:19:58
  So previously, if you're an Apex pro user, you're familiar, the green lights.
• 1:20:02
  are good.
• 1:20:03
  Red lights mean there's more potential or there's more performance available.
• 1:20:06
  And, um, that's true from the braking zone to the trackout point.
• 1:20:10
  But on the straightaways, essentially the device is expecting you to accelerate at
• 1:20:14
  your hardest acceleration longitudinally.
• 1:20:16
  And that's what the red lights are showing you.
• 1:20:17
  So you go down a straightaway at all these red lights start to appear even
• 1:20:20
  when you're at wide open throttle.
• 1:20:22
  But we've basically through collection of data.
• 1:20:25
  Um, and then through just some seat time in the race car, testing it and
• 1:20:28
  validating some changes to the model.
• 1:20:31
  Now, if you get your optimal exit out of the corner, you're at wide open throttle.
• 1:20:34
  Soon, you're going to see the same thing down the straightaways
• 1:20:36
  that you see in the corner.
• 1:20:37
  Right.
• 1:20:38
  Even though I'm not accelerating at my peak acceleration, I'm doing the
• 1:20:41
  best that I can right now, given my gear ratios and my horsepower and.
• 1:20:46
  That's really exciting for me because I think it's a more
• 1:20:48
  intuitive product for our customers.
• 1:20:50
  And what does that mean for existing customers?
• 1:20:52
  Is the software still going to be backwards compatible?
• 1:20:54
  When does the Gen 1 product go, you know, EOL or end of life?
• 1:20:59
  You know, is there going to be an Apex Pro 1 versus Apex Pro 2 app where
• 1:21:03
  they'll be fundamentally different?
• 1:21:04
  Or is there, you know, You know, how is that all going to work?
• 1:21:06
  Yeah.
• 1:21:07
  Great question.
• 1:21:07
  So the, the app will be compatible with Apex Pro Gen 1 and Gen 2 devices.
• 1:21:12
  There'll be no changes there.
• 1:21:13
  There will be a big app update coming at the same time Gen 2 comes out to take
• 1:21:18
  advantage of a lot of the new features from Gen 2, but as a Gen 1 customer, if
• 1:21:22
  you, if you're not upgrading, or maybe you bought one more recently, you're
• 1:21:26
  still going to reap the benefits of us now selling a new hardware device.
• 1:21:29
  So you're going to get.
• 1:21:30
  Um, a reimagined interface.
• 1:21:32
  You know, we've just had a lot of experience watching people use the app
• 1:21:35
  and improving the UI UX element of our, uh, our business, uh, and really becoming
• 1:21:41
  better internally at understanding how to develop a UI that, that works.
• 1:21:44
  And then there's a lot of new features baked into that
• 1:21:46
  software, obviously, because.
• 1:21:48
  Now we have more capability coming from the Gen 2 unit.
• 1:21:50
  So really no changes for Gen 1 users other than you're going to
• 1:21:53
  have a new interface to adjust to.
• 1:21:55
  But our social platform, which we call CrewView is getting enhanced dramatically.
• 1:21:59
  So as a new user, now you'll have to, you'll notice, even if you already
• 1:22:03
  have an account with us on our app, you're going to create a new account
• 1:22:06
  because we actually changed our whole.
• 1:22:08
  Backend, our whole server situation.
• 1:22:10
  We were using Apple's kind of embedded server, the iCloud
• 1:22:14
  tools that they provide you.
• 1:22:15
  And now we have our own server and our own network that we're
• 1:22:17
  managing all that on, which to the end user, why is that important?
• 1:22:20
  It's important because it's going to let us do more for you with the data that
• 1:22:24
  we get from your submitted sessions.
• 1:22:26
  It's going to allow us to, um, just offer you more pointed information to be a
• 1:22:31
  lot better, essentially as a business.
• 1:22:32
  So you're going to create a new account when you log in and now you're
• 1:22:35
  going to be able to submit your data.
• 1:22:36
  And compete with people just like we have now, you can see the top 10
• 1:22:40
  fastest drivers at every track, but now it's going to be separated by tire.
• 1:22:43
  So we're going to have a category for slicks, a category for your
• 1:22:47
  R compound track tires, uh, and then category for street tires.
• 1:22:50
  Now you're kind of in a little more of a level playing field, right?
• 1:22:54
  You could still have a Miata and a GT3 on slicks and not be that close.
• 1:22:57
  We're at least kind of narrowing it down because we've noticed
• 1:22:59
  that's a huge part of what our.
• 1:23:01
  Customers want is they want to see how fast my friends are.
• 1:23:04
  Am I beating my friends?
• 1:23:06
  How fast did my buddies go this weekend?
• 1:23:07
  Are my friends on track this weekend?
• 1:23:09
  And we're trying to help people answer those types of questions.
• 1:23:12
  Absolutely.
• 1:23:12
  So, you know, for all of us, technophiles out there, we always
• 1:23:15
  want the latest and greatest thing.
• 1:23:16
  So I'm going to assume in the future, there'll probably be some app
• 1:23:20
  changes where it'll say, you know, gen two only or something like that.
• 1:23:23
  Features will be grayed out, but you know, we always want
• 1:23:26
  the newest and shiniest objects.
• 1:23:27
  So is there some sort of buyback trade in or promotional program
• 1:23:31
  going on for gen one customers that want to have the newest toy and the
• 1:23:35
  hottest thing on the market right now?
• 1:23:37
  Yeah, there is.
• 1:23:38
  So when we roll out the product and you, you might've already heard this,
• 1:23:42
  but if you subscribe to our in app purchase, which we, uh, our in app
• 1:23:46
  subscription is called Laptimer Plus, which we talked about, you know,
• 1:23:49
  already, we are offering a 120 discount.
• 1:23:54
  Basically gives you a free year of the subscription plus an extra 20 off.
• 1:23:58
  Um, because the subscription is 99 a year.
• 1:24:00
  So you have to reach out to us.
• 1:24:01
  There's a form on our website.
• 1:24:02
  You can go and fill out and that's going to, uh, submit that information to us.
• 1:24:06
  We'll reach back out to you and we'll hook you up with the new gen two apex pro.
• 1:24:10
  So yeah, yeah.
• 1:24:10
  Great question.
• 1:24:11
  Very cool.
• 1:24:12
  Well, thank you for that update.
• 1:24:13
  And I'm sure a lot of folks are going to be chomping at the bit to get that gen
• 1:24:16
  two product and see what it's all about.
• 1:24:18
  There'll probably be, you know, 57 different YouTube unboxing videos as
• 1:24:22
  soon as it hits somebody's doorstep.
• 1:24:24
  So looking forward to that and, you know, keep up the good work.
• 1:24:27
  Awesome.
• 1:24:27
  I really appreciate it.
• 1:24:28
  The last thing I'll include is we've had a lot of customers
• 1:24:31
  ask for live streaming of data.
• 1:24:33
  Uh, and because we require having the cell phone in the car.
• 1:24:36
  We can do that via cellular.
• 1:24:37
  So look for more information with gen two only about telemetry
• 1:24:41
  streamed from the device.
• 1:24:42
  So as we wrap things up here, Andrew, are there any shout outs, anybody you
• 1:24:46
  want to call out to while you still have the airwaves at your attention?
• 1:24:50
  Well, thanks for Phil for, uh, for having me, uh, for inviting me on the show.
• 1:24:54
  And, and thanks, uh, uh, Eric, that was Eric that came up with it
• 1:24:57
  after we did our max speed podcast.
• 1:24:59
  So.
• 1:25:01
  Well, no, I, I mean, I, obviously I'm not the only person at Apex pro.
• 1:25:04
  I'm the only person that people are going to see on social media, but, uh, I have a
• 1:25:08
  team here, uh, multiple business partners, one who's a lot smarter than I am with.
• 1:25:13
  Accounting and numbers and math and was a worked on wall street for a while.
• 1:25:17
  And another, who's a mechanical engineering PhD.
• 1:25:19
  Uh, we now have a full time electrical engineer who works
• 1:25:22
  on Apex and other projects.
• 1:25:24
  We have one of our engineers is really Bluetooth specialist.
• 1:25:27
  He knows everything about, about BLE.
• 1:25:29
  We're working on some other industry products to help them
• 1:25:32
  solve Bluetooth related issues.
• 1:25:33
  We've got a really cool, uh, network of people that operate out of
• 1:25:37
  our building and, uh, I couldn't, I couldn't do it without them.
• 1:25:40
  So you might see my face publicly, but there's a lot that happens behind
• 1:25:43
  the scenes to make it all happen.
• 1:25:45
  Well, again, congratulations on everything you guys have been doing.
• 1:25:49
  I mean, the progress looks awesome.
• 1:25:51
  I mean, I've heard nothing but good things about the product itself.
• 1:25:54
  So I'm looking forward to seeing where things go from here.
• 1:25:57
  So, you know, keep us apprised of what comes next.
• 1:26:00
  But I want to tell all of our listeners out there, if you've enjoyed this episode
• 1:26:03
  and you want to learn more about Apex pro, remember to visit apextrackcoach.
• 1:26:09
  com or look for Andrew smiling face on Facebook and
• 1:26:14
  Instagram at official apex pro.
• 1:26:16
  And also be sure to check out their computer base or CBT
• 1:26:19
  training at Apex track coach.
• 1:26:21
  com forward slash education.
• 1:26:23
  That way you can get up to speed on Apex pro as quickly as possible.
• 1:26:27
  The one thing I do want to do before we close out here, gentlemen, is
• 1:26:30
  remind everybody that's in the room.
• 1:26:31
  listening to this particular episode that there is a give and take with any
• 1:26:36
  of these digital systems and that they do not understand you or your vehicle.
• 1:26:41
  There are physical limits that need to be reviewed when you're using a system
• 1:26:45
  like this, this one, or one like this.
• 1:26:49
  So always use your better judgment.
• 1:26:51
  When attempting to push for better performance, better lap times,
• 1:26:55
  whatever it is that you're reaching for, make sure that your vehicle is
• 1:26:59
  mechanically capable and that your awareness is at its optimal, right?
• 1:27:04
  It's about you and the car at the end of the day, if you're
• 1:27:07
  looking to push and improve.
• 1:27:08
  So don't take unnecessary risks.
• 1:27:11
  Especially at driver's education events like max speed events
• 1:27:16
  where timing is frowned upon.
• 1:27:18
  Remember that folks check track schedules for open days or test
• 1:27:23
  and tune events so that you can maximize your training experience.
• 1:27:26
  with a tool like Apex Pro.
• 1:27:28
  And the last thing I'll leave everybody with is to never stop learning.
• 1:27:33
  This is a great tool to be able to expand your driver knowledge, your
• 1:27:37
  ability, your techniques, all of that.
• 1:27:39
  So I can't thank you guys enough, Andrew, for coming on the show, Phil,
• 1:27:43
  for being my guest host this week.
• 1:27:45
  You guys, thank you so much for coming on the show.
• 1:27:47
  This has been awesome.
• 1:27:48
  Thanks, Eric.
• 1:27:48
  Very well put.
• 1:27:49
  I appreciate it.
• 1:27:50
  Thank you, Eric.
• 1:27:55
  If you like what you've heard and want to learn more about GTM,
• 1:27:58
  be sure to check us out on www.
• 1:28:02
  gtmotorsports.
• 1:28:02
  org.
• 1:28:03
  You can also find us on Instagram Also, if you want to get involved or have
• 1:28:08
  suggestions for future shows, you can call or text us at 202 630 1770 or send
• 1:28:15
  us an email at crewchief at gtmotorsports.
• 1:28:18
  org.
• 1:28:18
  We'd love to hear from you.
• 1:28:20
  Hey everybody, Crew Chief Eric here.
• 1:28:23
  We really hope you enjoyed this episode of Break Fix and we wanted to remind you that
• 1:28:27
  GTM remains a no annual fees organization.
• 1:28:31
  And our goal is to continue to bring you quality episodes
• 1:28:34
  like this one at no charge.
• 1:28:36
  As a loyal listener, please consider subscribing to our Patreon for
• 1:28:40
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• 1:28:51
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• 1:28:59
  patreon.
• 1:28:59
  com.
• 1:28:59
  patreon.
• 1:29:00
  com forward slash GT Motorsports and remember without fans,
• 1:29:05
  supporters, and members like you, none of this would be possible.